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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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https://archive.org/details/manspartnershipwOOtelf 


MAN’S PARTNERSHIP WITH 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE 


The 38th Fernley Lecture 


WITH DIVINE 
PROVIDENCE 


BY 


JOHN TELFORD, B.A. 


“God’s providence is mine inheritance’ 


Nu Woeyv ORK Eh ALON iSeeMALNS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 


A ere ‘PRINTED BY < 
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
: A et - LONDON AND BECCLES. 


TO 
JAMES HARRISON RIGG, D.D. 


WITH 
GROWING ESTEEM AND 
AFFECTION 


pee ea 


af a? 
i Sen 


= 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


b. 

LE 
{1. 
IV. 
NG 
VI. 
VII. 
VIII. 
IX. 
. 
XI. 
QW 
XUI. 
XIV. 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE 

HuMAN PROVIDENCE 

THe Brete as a Book or PRovipENce. 
PROVIDENCE IN OTHER RELIGIONS 

THE Gop oF PROVIDENCE 

THE MAN oF PROVIDENCE 

NATURE AS A Book or ProvipENCE 

PROVIDENCE IN THE Lire or NAtTrons 
PROVIDENCE IN CHURCH HistToRY 

PROVIDENCE IN Missronary SERVICE 

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS A Book or PROVIDENCE 
REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES 

PROVIDENTIAL Metuops 

PROVIDENCE AND Its Orrrics . 

THE PART ASSIGNED to HumMAN PROVIDENCE 


INDEX : : : 


PAGE 


ie Yaa 


‘te ae 
7S) 


I 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE 


While creatures are ministering unto Him, the Highest Creator 
sitteth upon His high seat, whence He wieldeth all things with His 
guiding reins. ’Tis no maryel, for He is King, and Master, and 
Wellspring, and Beginning, and Law, and Wisdom, and Righteous 
Judge. He sendeth all. creatures on His errands, and biddeth them 
all return. If the one unchanging King had not established all 
things created, they would all have fallen and burst asunder and 
come to naught. Nevertheless they have one thing in common— 
their ‘single love in the serving of such a Master; and they rejoice 
that He ruleth them. No wonder is it, for they could not be at all, 
did they not serve their Maker.—Kina ALFREp’s version of the 
Consolations of Boethius, Chap. xxxix. 


And indeed it were not worth while to live in a world devoid of 
God and Providence. —FLAVEL. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
The Belief in Divine Providence . ‘ ‘ 3 
The Book of Divine Providence ; . 4 
Milton’s fear of misinterpreting Providence . . . ' ; 5 
Faith of Wesley and Browning in Providence . ‘ ; . 6 
The word ‘ providence’ in ee Apocrypha, and Rheims New 


Testament : ° ° : ‘ 7 
Two definitions! Hegel and at W. B. Pope : ; ; 4 ; 8 
Is there any Providence over human affairs? . ' é 
Caution in stating the doctrine . . : . ; ‘ meu 
Inspirations of the belief in Providence . 4 
St. Augustine on Universal Providence ‘ 2 ‘ : 
The Temple of Providence . . ‘ wages ‘ ‘ : ae 


LITERATURE 


Nore.—The references given in the chapters will guide the student 
to the sections he needs in any of the authorities named. For the use of 
some of these volumes and for much wise suggestion, I am indebted to my 
friend the Rev. William Unsworth. 


The articles on Providence in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible and 
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels; Dr. A. B. Bruce, The Providential 
Order (Gifford Lectures, 1897) ; Pope, Compendium of Theology and Higher 
Catechism of Theology; Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine; Schmid, 
Scientific Creed of a Theologian; Watson, Philosophical Basis of Religion. 


I 
A BELIEF in Divine Providence lies at the root 


of all religion, Even its crudest expression 

in the superstition of savage tribes recognizes 
some superior power which controls human destiny. The 
nobler and truer religion becomes, the more prominence 
does it give to the providence of God. Christian men 
believe in a wise and gracious government of the world. 
They are not blind to the difficulties which surround a 
subject so vast and so complex as that of God’s pro- 
vision and oversight for every living thing. Christian 
thinkers naturally expect to meet many mysteries as 
they attempt to trace the working of Divine Provi- 
dence. Its methods and plans must often of necessity 
be far above human sight. We dare not hope to grasp 
their meaning fully or in a moment. They may be 
expected to unfold slowly and by successive stages. 
Explanations may often be withheld, or may only 
gradually be made clear. Yet these difficulties do not 
destroy faith in Divine Providence. They often test it 
sorely ; but if it is rooted in strong conviction of God’s 
power and goodness, the belief will emerge from these 
tests with new force and compass, as Archbishop 

B2 


4 Man’s Partnership with 


Leighton said of grace when plunged in the waters 
of adversity: ‘It rises more beautiful, as not being 
drowned indeed, but only washed.’! 

The problems that await us in such a study as this 
grow more complex and more enthralling as the world 
advances in knowledge and in its grasp of its complex 
resources. Much light has been thrown upon the 
subject since Wesley’s day, yet his words are still 
true— 


There is scarce any doctrine in the whole compass of 
revelation, which is of deeper importance than this. And, 
at the same time, there is scarce any that is so little 
regarded, and perhaps so little understood.’ 


The Book of Divine Providence is bigger than the 
Bible. It covers the course of universal history, it 
includes the story of all nations and all lives. It 
deals with the creation of the earth, it traces its 
progress and development from generation to genera- 
tion. The subject first wove its spell around the 
writer when he reached that memorable question in 
the Methodist Catechism: ‘What is God’s providence?’ 
and learnt the answer: ‘His most holy, wise, and 
powerful preservation and government of all His 
creatures, and all their actions.’ 


Ps, ciii. 19.—His kingdom ruleth over all. 

Matt. x. 30.—The very hairs of your head are all numbered. 

1 Tim. vi. 15.—King of kings, and Lord of lords. 

Ps. Ixxvi, 10.—Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; 
the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain, 


' On 1 Peter i. 7. 2 Works, vi. p. 315, 


Divine Providence 5 


That answer, with the lovely string of texts, each 
a gleam into the great realm of Divine Providence, left 
its stamp on a boy’s mind, and was one of the truths 
that he carried from his Sunday school as a lamp for 
his feet in coming years. 

The study of God’s providence, which these pages 
attempt, is not a task to be undertaken lightly. There 
is grave danger of misinterpreting God. Milton realized 
the peril when those undarkened eyes of his soul were 
turned on this world of mysteries. The grandeur and 
the difficulty of his theme drew from the Puritan poet 
his memorable prayer to the Divine Spirit :— 

What in me is dark 
Illumine, what is low raise and support; 
That to the highth of this great argument 


I may assert Eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men. 


Milton’s reverence and humility well befit any one 
who ventures to tread in his steps, Yet it is worth 
while to attempt this task. We believe in God’s 
providence. That faith has endured many a mighty 
shock, but it is itself unshaken. The belief has changed 
its form in various ways as science and experience 
have interpreted nature and human history; but the 
Church of Christ has not outgrown the Sermon on the 
Mount nor lost that vision of the Heavenly Father 
who knows and loves and succours the creatures whom 
His hands have made. John Wesley, in a letter to his 

1 Paradise Lost, i. 22-6. 


6 Man’s Partnership with 


friend Ebenezer Blackwell dated 1755, condensed that 
faith in Providence into a glorious sentence which 
reveals the secret of his patient strength and daily 
sunshine: ‘I see God sitting on His throne, and 
ruling all things well.’ The words were a memorable 
anticipation of the song which Browning puts in the 
mouth of ‘ that little ragged girl.’ 


The year’s at the spring 
And day’s at the morn ; 
Morning’s at seven ; 

The hillside’s dew-pearled ; 
The lark’s on the wing ; 
The snail’s on the thorn: 
God’s in His heaven— 
All’s right with the world!’ 


Two great spirits thus meet across the intervening 
century with their confession of faith in Divine 
Providence. No greater service can be done to our 
feverish and troubled age than to induce it to study 
the book of Providence. It is always challenging 
attention from those who have eyes to see. 


Providence is no doubt a lesson-book, spread out before 
us that we may read it. Yet it is a difficult and mysterious 
book. . . . Most assuredly, the volume of Providence is as 
much more difficult of interpretation than the volume of 
the Word, as hieroglyphical writing is than alphabetical. 


Yet despite the mysteries, those who share St. Paul’s 
confidence, ‘We know that all things work together 


1 Works, xii. 183. 2 Pippa Passes, Part f. 
> M‘Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government, p. 189. 


Divine Providence ” 


for good to them that love God,’ will have no fear as 
to the result of humble and prayerful investigation. 
It must assuredly end in fresh confidence and richer 
praise, 

The word ‘Providence’—Greek wpdvora, Vulgate 
providentia—is only found once in the English Bible. 
Tertullus, the orator who accuses Paul in the court 
of Felix, pays memorable tribute to that Roman 
governor: ‘Seeing that by thee we enjoy much peace, 
and that by thy providence evils are corrected for this 
nation, we accept it in all ways and in all places, most 
excellent Felix, with all thankfulness’ (Acts xxiv. 2, 3). 
The Greek Testament has the word also in Rom. xii. 
14: ‘Make not provision (rpévorav) for the flesh, to 
fulfil the lusts thereof.’ Itis used in the Wisdom of 
Solomon (xiv. 2-5) to describe the care of God over the 
mariner who ventures to sea in his vessel: ‘For verily 
desire of gain deviseth that, and the workman built 16 
by his skill. But Thy providence, O Father, governeth 
it: for Thou hast made a way in the sea, and a safe path 
in the waves; shewing that Thou canst save from all 
danger: yea, though a man went to sea without art. 
Nevertheless thou wouldest not that the works of Thy 
wisdom should be idle, and therefore do men commit 
their lives to a small piece of wood, and, passing the 
rough sea in a weak vessel, are saved.’ Again in the 
Wisdom of Solomon, xvii, 2, we read: ‘For when 
unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation ; 
they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners 


8 Man’s Partnership with 


of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long 
night, lay (there) exiled [fugitives] from the Eternal 
Providence.’ 

In the Rheims New Testament a marginal note is 
attached to Luke xii. 22: ‘He forbiddeth not competent 
providence, but to much carefulness.’ 

The Rheims New Testament has also a note on 
Acts li. 23, which is described in the margin as 
‘God’s determination that Jesus should die excuseth 
not the Jewes. It reads— 


By the determinate counsel, &c. God delivered Him, 
and He delivered Himself, for love and intention of our 
salvation, and so the act was holy and God’s owne deter- 
mination. But the Jewes and others which betrayed and 
crucified Him, did it of malice and wicked purpose, and 
their facte was damnable, and not of God’s counsel or 
causing : though He tolerated it, for that He could and did 
turne their abominable facte to the good of our salvation. 
Therefore abhorre those new Manichees of our time, both 
Lutherans and Calvinists, that must make God the author 
and cause of Judas betraying of Christ, no less than of 
Paules conversion. Beside the false translation of Beza, 
saying for God’s prescience or foreknowledge (in the 
Greeke, wpéyvwors) God’s providence. 


Hegel supplies a good working definition: ‘ Divine 
Providence is wisdom, endowed with an infinite Power, 
which realizes its aim, viz. the absolute rational design 
of the world.’ } 

Dr. W. B. Pope says that Providence ‘in its widest 


1 Philosophy of History, p. 18. 


Divine Providence 9 


application, signifies the Divine Presence in the world 
as sustaining, controlling, and guiding to their destina- 
tion all things that are made. . .. It is obviously the 
most comprehensive term in the language of theology. 
There is no topic which has already been discussed, 
none which awaits discussion, that does not pay its 
tribute to Providence.’ * 

We may be met with the preliminary objection: Is 
there any Providence over human affairs at all? Do 
not the wrongs of society, the sorrows of good men, 
the confusion and strife which we daily witness, force 
us to conclude that God has withdrawn from His world 
and left it to the sway of inexorable laws which work 
out their results unrelieved by any adjustment to 
individual needs, or any pity for human frailty and 
ignorance? Leibnitz, in his historic Theodtcy, refers to 
things which make some conclude that there is not any 
Providence to govern human affairs. 


Man is exposed to a temptation to which we know that 
he will succumb. An infinity of frightful evils arise there- 
from. By his fall all the human race will be infected and 
set in a kind of necessity of sinning called original sin. 
The world will thus be involved in a strange confusion. 
Death and many maladies will be introduced, with a 
thousand other evils and mysteries which afflict ordinarily 
the good and the bad. Wickedness ever reigns, and virtue 
is oppressed here below, and so it scarcely appears that any 
Providence presides over the world.? 


1 Compendium of Theology, pp. 186, 200. 
2 Essais de Théodicée, Premitre Partie, § 4. 


fe) Man’s Partnership with 


These difficulties are always before our eyes, and the 
impression which they make is too profound to be either 
ignored or forgotten. Whilst they do not shake our 
conviction that the world is under the control of Provi- 
aence, they warn us that the doctrine needs to be stated 
with extreme caution. In magnifying Divine Provi- 
dence we must not lose sight of that human providence 
which is meant to be its ally. There are many sorrows 
of the world which are caused by defiance of God’s 
providence or failure to co-operate with it, | We must 
remember that He does not override man’s action, 
though He overrules it in ways that often fill us with 
surprise. Till this partnership is recognized, we shall 
often be in perplexity. Sir James Stephen puts the 
difficulty in a letter to Dr. Whewell. 


To conceive of Deity as actually present, and as acting 
at each instant of time, and at each point of Space, so as to 
be the veritable conductor of all movements, from their 
commencement to their close—does it not involve some 
formidable consequences? . . . In popular discourse we 
call those events * providential ’ which seem to us to prevent, 
or to cure, or to mitigate sorrow, or tend to induce some 
positive benefit ; and the man who was prevented the other 
day from embarking on the ship which was wrecked off 
Beachy Head, called his escape ‘ providential.’ To have 
spoken in that manner of the embarcation of the family 
who were drowned in her, would have shocked a common 
feeling or prejudice.’ 


That letter reminds us that no human wisdom can 


' Letters, p. 195, November 1, 1853. 


Divine Providence II 


unravel the mystery of each separate dispensation of 
Providence, and bids us wait for the final explanation. 
Meanwhile Providence may fulfil its purpose for some by 
lengthening out life and for others by allowing natural 
law to take its course. The result in these cases may 
alike be for God’s glory and the good of others. A 
survey of human affairs reveals the presence of a guiding 
hand and will. Whatever perplexities may face us in 
the consideration of individual cases, we cannot doubt 
that God rules the world. Professor Gwatkin argues— 


In one sense, no doubt, every true thought must be of 
divine suggestion ; for if there is a God not lower than the 
beasts, we need no Gospel to tell us that there is such a 
thing as Providence,—which in this case means that the 
order of things has been so arranged and guided as to 
suggest such true thought.? 


God’s providence may thus be regarded as a glorious 
fact, which inspires those who trust in it with courage 
to face all tasks that life may set them. It is our 
heavenly Father’s foreseeing and gracious rule over His 
world, There is no realm of nature over which Divine 
Providence does not hold sway. The history of nations 
and churches, as well as the life of families and indi- 
viduals, is shaped and controlled by this care of God. 
The great and the lowly, the just and the unjust, are all 
under His sway. 


When we speak of the providence of God we mean that 
in all the events of life, individual and national, God has a 


1 The Knowledge of God, i. 165-7. 


I2 Man’s Partnership with 


part and a share. He ig not absent; He does not look 
down upon the world from a distance, never approaching it. 
Holding ‘ second causes’ in His hands, He works with them 
and through them in a way which leads us to say, God is 
here, and He is working. That is Providence.’ 


Providence not only seeks the physical well-being of 
the world, but has its great moral and spiritual ends, 
which are never out of sight. It is an application of 
Christianity to the needs of man. The uplifting of 
nations and individuals under the mediatorial sove- 
reignty of Christ is the goal towards which the whole 
scheme moves steadily on. We believe in God’s 
gracious conduct of all human things, It was our Lord’s 
consolation and inspiration and it is ours, 


Faith in a Divine Providence, in answers to prayer, and 
in miracles, is indeed an inalienable factor in the Christian 
view of the world. . . . That God’s Providence rules over 
the world down to its very smallest details ; that in both 
the small and the great requirements of life God leads men 
like a Father, especially those who know themselves to be 
children of God through Christ ; and that He gives them 
the conscious experience of this Fatherly guidance in their 
earthly lot,—this is a self-evident factor in the Christian 
view of the world. Jesus Christ, on whom this view is 
founded, Himself lived in this faith and proclaimed it. 


St. Augustine had a lofty faith in a Universal 
Providence. Before his conversion he had been greatly 


* Dr. J. Elder Cumming, The Book of Esther, pp. 70-1. 
* Schmid, Setentifie Creed of a Theologian, p. 172. 


Divine Providence 13 


attracted to Manichaeism with its conflicting forces of 
good and evil, Ambrose saved him from that heresy 
by showing him that the world and man were the 
free creation of God. He thus turned the mind of 
the future theologian in a new direction. Providence 
became for Augustine the ground of the order or 
harmony in all things. He compared the universe to 
a beautiful poem. God worked through His creatures 
while He Himself remained unchangeable.1 Augus- 
tine’s statement of the doctrine forms one of the 
noblest passages in the classic Apologia for Providence 
written two years after Alaric had sacked Rome. 


The Maker and Creator of every soul, and of every 
body, . . . He, from whom is all being, beauty, form and 
order, number, weight, and measure; He from whom all 
nature, mean and excellent, all seeds of form, all forms 
of seed, all motion both of forms and seeds derive and have 
being; He that gave flesh the original beauty, strength, 
propagation, form and shape, health and symmetry; He 
that gave the unreasonable soul, sense, memory and appe- 
tite, the reasonable besides these, phantasy, understanding, 
and will: He (J say) having left neither heaven, nor earth, 
nor angel, nor man, no, nor the most base and contemptible 
creature, neither the bird’s feather, nor the herb’s flower, 
nor the tree’s leaf, without the true harmony of their parts, 
and peaceful concord of composition ; it is no way credible, 
that He would leave the kingdoms of men, and their bond- 
ages and freedoms, loose and uncomprised in the laws of 
His eternal providence.* 


1 Watson, Philosophical Basis of Religion, pp. 340-1. 
2 De Civitate Dei, y. 11 (translation by J. H., 1610). 


14 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


Many doubts are set at rest when, like St. Augustine, 
we regard the world itself as a revelation of Divine 
Providence. York Cathedral has been described by an 
American visitor as ‘the grandest and beautifullest in 
all England.’ Those who have felt its spell and have 
traced the story of the minster which has gathered 
around itself the pride and love, not only of its own 
ereat county of Yorkshire, but also of the whole of 
England, will scarcely feel it an unworthy illustration of 
that great temple of Providence of which God Himself 
is both builder and architect. Within that glorious 
temple centres the life and work of man; and as we 
read his story in the page of history, and follow the 
labours of the Church of Christ in all lands, the book 
of Providence opens before us with divine love and 
wisdom shining forth from every page, 


EE 
HUMAN PROVIDENCE 


With a providence unknown in other parts of Scotland, the 


peasants have in most places planted orchards around their cottages. 
—Old Mortality, Chap. xi. 


But if, as is the more religious theory, Providence intends not all 
which happens, but only what is good, then indeed man has it in his 
power, by his voluntary actions, to aid the intentions of Providence; 
but he can only learn those intentions by considering what tends to 
promote the general good, and not what man has a natural inclination 
to.—J. Stuart MILu, Essays on Religion, p. 55. 


There are perhaps some circumstances of life in which Providence 
has no intention that people should be content.—Ruskin, Unto this 
Last, § 83. 


For the providence of man is included under the providence of 
God, just as a particular cause under a universal cause.—THomAs 
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Q. xxii. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Human Providence a modest counterpart of Divine Providence . 17 
The contrast humbling yet encouraging . 4 A ‘ 4 5 


God the predominant partner . : 4 ; : ‘ : Papi be 
Man must work in harmony with God . : : : lea ia | 


God’s providence incarnate in man . ; ‘ : 3 ‘ ee 

Duties of Human Providence . 4 . . § ‘ 3 et gi | 

Its spheres of work . ‘ : : ; : 0 uae 

God’s instruments wear out and are laid sean. : ‘ v vee 
LITERATURE 


Huntington, Human Society: lis Providential Structure, Relations, and 
Offices ; Lilley, Adventus Regni; Lodge, The Substance of Faith ; Rauschen- 
busch, Christianity and the Social Crisis. 


Il 


ROM the study of Divine Providence we pass 
k to that humbler realm where Human Provi- 
dence is at work. God’s providence seems 
at first to dwarf that of man. It brings us into the 
presence of infinite resources of wisdom, power, and 
goodness, resources of which the display is unfettered 
by those limits of time and place to which man 
must always submit. Human Providence, when best 
and wisest, can only be a modest counterpart of the 
Divine Providence, stumbling after it in painful con- 
sciousness of its blindness and its scanty powers. It 
is well when it is content to play this lowly part. 
Men have often been found indifferent to the place 
they had to fill, blind to its possibilities and oppor- 
tunities, or slumbering till the hour for action had 
gone. They have even set themselves to hinder or 
oppose the plans of Divine Providence. Gamaliel 
was alive to this peril when he uttered his memorable 
warning to the Sanhedrin: ‘Lest haply ye be found 
even to-fight against God’ (Acts v. 39). 
Yet if the contrast between Divine and Human 
Providence is humbling, there are considerations which 
Cc 


18 Man’s Partnership with 


change that feeling to one of hope and courage. 
Here is a province which we need not despair of 
shaping and controlling. Man’s position must always 
be subordinate. He can reach no higher glory, no 
nobler sphere, than to be a scholar and an ally of 
Divine Providence. If he works in obedience to the 
higher power, divine resources will always be behind 
him. The weakness of the human instrument will but 
serve to bring out the riches of God’s grace and 
wisdom. He can thus do His best work. ‘God 
chose the foolish things of the world, that He might 
put to shame them that are wise; and God chose 
the weak things of the world, that He might put 
to shame the things that are strong; and the base 
things of the world, and the things that are despised, 
did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that 
He might bring to nought the things that are: that 
no flesh should glory before God’ (1 Cor. i. 27-9). 

The accusations brought against Divine Providence 
often resolve themselves into failures of its human 
partners, who have not been alert to embrace the 
opportunity of escaping disaster or prompt to seize 
the openings that would have led to success. Many 
questions here suggest themselves. How far does 
Divine Providence overrule the mistakes of its human 
ally ; in what cases will it override man’s opposition ; to 
what extent will it educate and guide him to better and 
wiser methods? These are problems of Providence which 
we Shall have to face at a later stage of the inquiry. 


Divine Providence 19 


In the scheme of Providence God is the pre- 
dominant partner. That position we dare not and 
would not dispute. Man’s power to further the ends 
for which his service is enlisted will increase in 
proportion as he recognizes this fact and frames 
his conduct in harmony with it. His wisdom lies 
in obeying, and imitating the methods of Divine 
Providence. 

Our Lord closed His revelation of God’s Providence : 
‘He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,’ with 
a call on all His disciples to frame their lives and 
tempers on the divine model: ‘Ye therefore shall be 
perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect ’ (Matt. 
v. 45, 48), 

The purposes of Providence cannot be fully 
answered in the spirit of this supreme command till 
the divine and the human partners work together in 
perfect harmony. Towards this end, difficult though it 
confessedly is, there are manifold helps. First and 
mightiest is the grace of the Divine Spirit, who guides 
and Jeads all the sons of God. Nature is also a teacher 
who trains man to fulfil his part in the scheme of 
Providence. She sets barriers of failure and punish- 
ment to turn him from the road which he must not take. 
She gives success and pleasure as he chooses the right 
path. Nature thus educates man in a thousand ways, and 
sustains him in his effort to further the plans of God. 

There is a continual spur to exertion in this 


20 Man’s Partnership with 


enlarged view of the co-operation between the divine 
and human partners in realizing the gradually unfold- 
ing programme in which we all have to play our part. 
A suggestive writer thus deals with this subject— 


We think of the providence of God as something outside 
us. Perhaps we cannot help thinking of it so, for most 
certainly it exists and acts far beyond the limits of our 
possible activity or of what is possible for us to imagine. 
But at least it is fruitless, more, it is a blasphemy, for us 
to fold our hands in a lazy reliance upon that providence. 
So far as we are concerned, God’s providence can only be 
fruitfully realized in proportion as it is incarnate in us. 
Then alone, at least, have we the right to reach out in a 
great hope and faith to the wider action of His universal 
care. There is no greater instance of religious delusion and 
self-deceit than a belief in the providence of God apart 
from co-operation with it.? 


Our perversions of the doctrine come from false 
conceptions ‘of God’s providence. We think of it asa 
kind of unregulated thaumaturgy, a mere wonder- 
working, a mere manipulation of matter by a force 
we cannot understand. When anything becomes in- 
telligible we withdraw it from the domain of God’s 
action. Surely it is time for us to have done with this 
notion of a magical Providence, of a Providence which 
reveals nothing but capricious power. It is only as 
the conscious agents of God’s providence that we can 
gradually, and always in such limited fashion, enter 
into the secret of His larger providence in the world,’ 2 

» Adventus Regni, by A. L. Lilley, p. 87. * Tbid., p. 89. _ 


Divine Providence 21 


It has taken many generations to reveal to the 
Church the greatness of its rdle as the ally of Divine 
Providence. The most sagacious and enlightened 
Christian men are only beginning to realize how vast 
and far-reaching are the opportunities opening before 
them. The field for service is indeed boundless. 
Bishop Gore regards it as a distinctive merit of Sir 
Oliver Lodge’s Catechism that so much stress is laid 
upon the responsibilities which rest on man as the 
administrator of the divine order. His duty is ‘to 
assist his fellows, to develop his own higher self, to 
strive towards good in every way open to his powers, 
and generally to seek to know the laws of Nature and 
to obey the will of God; in whose service alone can be 
found that harmonious exercise of the faculties which 
is identical with perfect freedom.’ 

The kingdom of heaven is the central feature of 
practical Christianity. 

Our whole effort should, directly or indirectly, make 
ready its way—in our hearts, in our lives, and in the 
lives of others. It is the ideal state of society towards 


which reformers are striving; it is the ideal of conscious 
existence towards which saints aim.” 


The limitless horizon thus opened up must not lead 
us to overlook our individual sphere, which is really 
glorified as a vital part of the universal scheme. Every 
home is a little world where Divine and Human 


1 Guardian, March 23, 1907, p. 528. 
2 Oatechism, Questions 4, 20, 


22 Man’s Partnership with 


Providence must labour hand-in-hand to secure those 
results which enrich both earth and heaven. No one 
can measure the opportunity for fidelity here. In this 
circle each father and mother may be God’s partner. 
Every child’s life is a seed-plot where the fruits of 
love and faith will surely grow if they are sown and 
nourished by that double Providence which ought to 
watch over every young life. 

A nation is a wider sphere. What an opportunity 
it offers to a wise ruler the pages of history will show. 
All statesmanship may be considered as Human Pro- 
vidence, on which judgement will be pronounced 
by-and-by according to its fidelity to the abiding 
ends for which God has raised it up. In the sphere 
of Church life and of philanthropy of every kind, 
Divine Providence is not less manifestly seeking to 
enlist and cultivate the best powers of its human 
allies. 

Abiding comfort may be found in the fact of 
such a partnership between Divine and Human Pro- 
vidence. We are God’s instruments; He knows how 
to use us. He knows also where to support and supple- 
ment our efforts. We must leave God to decide how 
and when His power and wisdom shall be brought in 
to sustain human agency. Man’s business is to 
be single in his purpose, to do all things to the 
_ glory of God. The art of always helping and never 
_ hindering Providence is perhaps the greatest that the 
Church and its individual members have to master. 


Divine Providence 23 


History is a book of lessons from which wise men 
are always being taught how to avoid failure and 
how to win victory for truth and holiness. Personal 
experience is a still more striking lesson stamped on 
the memory and heart, that man may become a more 
efficient and useful ally of Divine Providence. Faith 
in God must be joined to faith in ourselves as His 
instruments. ‘Put your trust in God, and keep your 
powder dry,’ was Cromwell’s counsel. The alliance 
between God and man is so close that no room 1s 
left for despair. ‘Providence is my next-door neigh-_ 
bour. It is our business to knock and ask for help. 

Such considerations make a wise man content to 
be laid aside or passed over when his task is done. 
God is the Abiding Partner. He endures; His tools 
wear out. We cannot bear too great and long- 
continued strain. God gives us the opportunity to 
retire. Sometimes from such a corner men watch 
others do their work better than they could have 
done it themselves. Charles Wesley was wise in his 
great saying: ‘God buries His workmen, but carries ” 
on His work.’ The chief question to be asked at 
any man’s death-bed is, ‘Has he done his providential 
work?’ ‘The glory of a life is reached when it can 
humbly echo St. Paul’s word: ‘I have fought the 
good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept 
the faith’ (2 Tim. iv. 7). 

Nor is it unfitting to suggest that powers diligently 
cultivated and wisely used on earth may be employed 


24 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


hereafter in ways that will surprise and delight us. 
St. John’s phrase, ‘His servants shall serve Him,’ 
suggests that we may be agents of Divine Providence 
in another and wider sphere. Dean Hole put this 
beautifully in a letter to a bereaved friend— 

The ‘dead’ are, I believe, more with us, can do more 
for us, than the living. In a very short time you will know 
this. You will feel yourself inclined, inspired, to do mare 
for the Saviour, whom you have always loved, than you heve 
ever done. 


The vision of Human Providence discharged from 
its mortal tasks and re-enlisted in wider fields of 
service is a supreme inspiration to present fidelity. 


1 Letters of 8, R. Hole, p. 71. 


III 


THE BIBLE AS A BOOK OF 
PROVIDENCE 


All the Oracles of God, all the Scriptures, both of the Old 
Testament and the New, describe so many scenes of Divine 
Providence.—Wers.Ey, Works, vi. 314. 


The Bible is a striking epitome of the whole doctrine of Nature 
and Providence, in which God is not tmmediately with us, but 
presents Himself through the existence and operation of men and 
things.—Strewarp, Mediatorial Sovereignty, i. 29. ; 


There can be little doubt that she (the Church) would gain 
something from the exercise within her borders of a freedom in 
discussing topics relating to the character and providence of God 
similar to those so splendidly exemplified in the Book of Job.— 
Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 4. 


For the Hebrew prophets, ‘the theatre of Providence was this 
present world, and the drama of history an effective, if not a perfect, 
demonstration of divine righteousness.’—Ibid., p. 195. 


The Bible is the book of Providence, but with the key attached.— 
Dykes, The Christtan Minister, p. 237. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
The Bible account of Creation ; : ues * 
Providence in Bible lives—Abraham, Tadob: yoseen Esther oe ee 
Providence in Jewish history . . , op eure , o 2 ee eee 
Providence in the Psalms . : . , 4 ‘ - . 82 
Problems of Providence in the Packing ‘ : ; : : le BE 
Providence in the Book of Job. . ‘ ; ‘ j ‘ oe yatae 
In Memoriam a companion picture . i : : «., 45 
The Fortieth of Isaiah and the Hebrew prophets : ; : ~ 45 
The Sermon on the Mount ‘ ‘ . 5 ‘ P . 46 
St. Paul’s view of Providence . : ; . : . a8 
Christianity a new promulgation of Provideube ; , i 48 


Some Hymns on Providence . . . . . ; F = ne 


LITERATURE 


The fullest general view is given in Oehler, Theology of the Old 
Testament, See also Driver, Literature of the Old Testament ; Bishop 
Gibson, The Book of Job; Lyttelton, Zhe Sermon on the Mount ; ‘Siawaee, 
Mediatorial Sovereignty ; T. Jackson, The Providence of God vickeed in the 
light of Holy Scripture, 


{il 


/ 


ATERIAL for a study of Divine Providence 
M must be drawn from four chief sources— 
Nature, the Bible, History, and Human 
Experience. The Scriptures bring us to the heart of 
these wonders of grace and goodness. 

The Old Testament is steeped in this truth. The 
account of creation, like a glorious panorama, unfolds 
the whole scene and scope of Divine Providence. God 
is revealed as the Maker of the earth, who frames it 
for the home of man; and at every step in its develop- 
ment expresses His satisfaction with the results, ‘God 
saw that it was good.’ | 


The aesthetic sentiment expressed when God beheld and 
pronounced all His creations ‘very good’ (Gen. 1. 21) 
evinces the moral sense as well as the intelligent judgement 
of the great ‘ Master Workman.’? 


He is looking on the earth as the sphere for the 
carrying out of His plans, and all nature thus approves 
itself to its Maker. That is the view of Providence as 
it shines forth from the wonderful Creation story in 


' Dr. Terry, Biblical Dogmatics, pp, 573-4. 


28 Man’s Partnership with 


the book of Genesis. We are not here concerned as to 
any supposed need of reconciliation between science 
and the Bible. Huxley’s opinion was that ‘ Genesis is 
honest to the core, and professes to be no more than it 
is, @ repository of venerable traditions of unknown 
origin, claiming no scientific authority and possessing 
none, } 

Professor Oehler, in treating of ‘The Aim of the 
World, and its Realization through Providence, says— 


The account of the Creation shows that a divine 
aim is to realize itself in the world. . . . In all creation 
God completes acts of self-satisfaction, but still the 
creating God does not reach the goal of His creation 
until He has set over against Him His image in man. 
From this last point it is to be gathered that the self- 
delineation of God, the unveiling of His essence, is the 
final aim of the creation of the world ; or, as it is more 
commonly expressed, that the whole world serves the 
revelation of the divine glory, and is thereby the object 
of divine joy (Ps. civ. 31). The Old Testament contem- 
plation of nature rests on this fundamental conception.? 


No sooner does the world receive its first inhabitants 
than God’s providence begins to direct their steps. 
Every Bible life is a lesson in the ways of Providence. 
Men and nations—God’s hand is over all. The story 
of Abraham opens that wonderful history of the man 
and the race whom Providence selected as special 


* Darwin’s Life and Letters, ii. 181. 
? Oehler, Old Testament Theology, i. 175. 


Divine Providence 29 


instruments for the fulfilment of its purposes. Abraham 
is brought out from his idolatrous associations among 
the Chaldaeans that he may become the father of the 
chosen nation. His family history is a chain of 
providences. Hagar has her share in the blessing 
when in the desert ‘she called the name of the Lord 
that spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth: for 
she said, Have I even here looked after Him that 
seeth me?’ (Gen. xvi. 13). Jacob pays tribute to the 
providential care that had made his way prosperous in 
Padan-aram : ‘ Except the God of my father, the God of 
Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely 
now hadst thou sent me away empty. God hath seen 
mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked 
thee yesternight’ (Gen. xxxi. 42), The patriarch’s 
death-bed survey of all that he owed to Providence 
is one of the most beautiful tributes ever paid to that 
Guardian care which he covets for Joseph’s sons: ‘The 
God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, 
the Angel which hath redeemed me from all evil, bless 
the lads’ (Gen. xviii. 15, 16). 

Joseph’s life is a memorable study of Providence. 
He is not blind to the way that his steps had been 
guided to Egypt. He understands how the envy of 
his brothers had been overruled for their own good. 
‘God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in 
the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance’ 
(Gen. xlv. 7). By such considerations he seeks to 
make their judgement on themselves less bitter, ‘ And 


30 Man’s Partnership with 


now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye 
sold me hither: for God did send me before you to 
preserve life’ (Gen. xlv. 5), 

Joseph’s thought is forcibly used by Mordecai to 
nerve Esther to become an intercessor for her race 
before the King of Persia, ‘For if thou altogether 
holdest thy peace at this time, then shall relief and 
deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but 
thou and thy father’s house shall perish: and who 
knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for 
such a time as this?’ (Esther iv. 14). The doctrine of 
an overruling Providence pervades that memorable 
story of the girl-queen. ‘The name of God is not 
found in it, yet He Himself lives on every page. It 
illustrates, in a way unsurpassed by any book in 
Scripture, the overruling providence of God. 

Dr. Elder Cumming traces five ‘lines of event, 
interwoven and yet independent, expressing the move- 
ment of will in wellnigh a hundred different men, and 
yet touching each other at countless points of interest 
and influence, closely connected with the whole action 
of the story; they form a whole only to be seen when 
if is complete; one deviation in any of them would 
make that whole quite different, if not indeed impos- 
sible: and they are all, secretly, unknown to most of 
the actors in it, in the hands of the Unseen God.’! 

The history of Moses from his cradle in the Nile to 
his death on Mount Pisgah is a study of Providence. 


1 Book of Esther, pp. 86-7. 


Divine Providence 31 


‘That is true in its measure of many other Bible stories. 
Illustration after illustration teaches us to discern the 
hand of God in other lives and to trace it in our own. 
Difficulties are cleared away; faith is strengthened to 
bear delays and avoid misinterpretations of the divine 
dealings. Perhaps no single verse gathers up the Bible 
view as to the Providence that watches over human life so 
completely as that word of Hanani the seer to King Asa: 
‘For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout 
the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf 
of them whose heart is perfect toward Him’ (2 Chron. 
evr a) 

The canvas is ampler on which God’s dealings with 
the chosen race are set forth. Professor Oehler says— 


The whole pentateuchal history of revelation is nothing 
but the activity of that divine providence which, in order 
to the realization of the divine aim, is at once directed to 
the whole (Deut. xxxii. 8; cf. Acts xvii. 26), and at the 
same time proves itself efficacious in the direction of the 
life of separate men, and in guiding of all circumstances, 
especially in regard to all human helplessness.’ 


Prophet and psalmist regarded this as ‘a time in 
which the guidance of God, His providence and His 
love, were lavished on Israel to win the people’s 
heart,’ ? 

The Old Testament view of Providence finds its 


1 Old Testament Theology, i. 175. 
? Knight, The Temptation of our Lord, p. 83. 


32 Man’s Partnership with 


climax in the Psalms, which embody the deepest 
thought and experience of the Jewish saints. Dean 
Church says— | 


No men ever in this world felt this truth so deeply and 
so unceasingly—felt it as the living and ever-present 
principle of each word and thought—as the men whose 
hearts the Spirit of God taught to write the Psalms. And 
it was to stamp this truth upon all the ages and degrees 
and changes of religious faith, to keep it clear and fresh 
and strong, however men might otherwise differ from one 
another—rich from poor, learned from unlearned, Greek 
from Jew, men of this day from the men of hundreds of 
years ago—it was to keep up among them all this great 
truth, that in the hands of God man may rest safe—that 
the Psalms were gathered into one book, and sung as the 
natural and familiar expression of faith and trust, from 
generation to generation, from church to church, and have 
been adopted as household words of prayer. ‘This thought, 
this truth, that God guides those who trust Him, and never 
guides them wrong, is the mark, the distinguishing doctrine, 
the keynote, of the book of Psalms.’ 


Whilst the whole hymn-book of the Jewish Church 
is steeped in this thought of the divine care for man, 
some of its loveliest verses may emphatically be 
described as Providence Psalms. At the head of these 
stands that Shepherd Psalm which has lifted multitudes 
in every generation above the clouds of doubt and fear. 
They have rested in all life’s needs on the Providence 
of the Divine Shepherd. Augustine chose it as the 
hymn of martyrs, Isaac Taylor says— 


1 Village Sermons, pp. 168-9. 


Divine Providence 33 


In its way down three thousand years or more, this 
Psalm has penetrated to the depths of millions of hearts ; 
it has gladdened homes of destitution and discomfort ; it 
has whispered hope and joy amid tears to the utterly 
solitary and forsaken, whose only refuge was in heaven." 


The Thirtieth Psalm has a noble passage which de- 
scribes the transformation wrought by providential 
interposition in storm-tossed lives. 

Weeping may tarry for the night, 

But joy cometh in the morning... . 

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; 

Thou hast loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. 

(vv. 5, 11.) 
On the last day of his life Bishop Hannington wrote: 
‘IT can hear no news, but was held up by Psalm xxx,, 
which came with great power.’ or 
Dean Church thinks that the first verse of Psalm 

xxxi., ‘In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me 
never be ashamed,’ is ‘the verse of all others which 
might be taken by itself to express the spirit of all the 
Psalms” Every page of the Psalter has thrown its 
ray of comfort into troubled lives. Psalm xlvi. was 
Luther’s stay amid the conflicts of his life of battles. 
He loved the Second Psalm also with all his heart. 
‘Tt strikes and flashes valiantly among kings, princes, 
counsellors, judges, &c. Psalm xci. was described in 
the Talmud as a ‘song of accidents,’ or, as Delitzsch 
puts it, a ‘Talismanic song in time of war and 


1 The Book of Psalma, p. 29. 
D 


34 Man’s Partnership with 


pestilence. An eminent physician in St. Petersburg 
was of that mind when he recommended it as the best 
preservation against the cholera. 

Three psalms which follow each other claim special 
attention in this light. Psalm ciii. is one of the 
sublimest hymns in praise of Providence that was ever 
penned. Psalm civ. traces through the whole creation 
the might and mercy of God. Bishop Wordsworth 
called it an ‘ Oratorio of Creation.’ 


O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! 
In wisdom hast Thou made them all: 
The earth is full of Thy riches. 

Yonder is the sea, great and wide, 
Wherein are things creeping innumerable, 
Both small and great beasts. 


Alexander von Humboldt says this single psalm 
almost represents the image of the whole Cosmos. 


We are astonished to find, in a lyrical poem of such 
limited compass, the whole universe, the heavens and earth, 
sketched with a few bold touches. The contrast of the 
labour of man with the animal life of Nature, and the 
image of omnipresent invisible Power, renewing the earth 
at will, or sweeping it of inhabitants, is a grand and solemn 
poetical creation.* 


Psalm cv. traces God’s providence through every 
step of Israel’s history. Those three psalms are 
glorious evidence of the trust in Divine Providence 
which was the strength of the chosen race. Psalms 


1 Cosmoa, IL. i. p. 418 (Bohn’s ed.). 


ee Se ee ee ee ee ee 


ll i ti a 


a ae 


Divine Providence 35 


xliv., Ixvi., and Ixxxv. are thanksgivings for provi- 
dential mercies. Psalm Ixxviii., the longest of the 
historical psalms, holds up, as Delitzsch puts it, ‘ The 
warning mirror of history from Moses to David.’ Nor 
is Psalm cvii. any less impressive as the voice of a 
rejoicing people. Psalm cxxxvi. has been called the 
Great Hallel, pouring forth a nation’s praise for 
providential blessing. 

Psalm cxxi., the Pilgrim Song of the Jewish 
feasts, was Bishop Hannington’s ‘Travelling Psalm.’ 
His companion during his tour in Palestine says— 

Every morning, often in the early dusk, we would have 
prayers together, and always the 121st Psalm, which I had 


to read. If the books had been packed away, the Bishop 
himself would say the Psalm by heart.. 


Hannington notes in his journal that Mr. Jones 
‘preached from the 121st Psalm. It being my 
Travelling Psalm, I take it as a good omen.’ William 
Romaine read the psalm every day. When Charles 
Kingsley’s father was Rector of Clovelly, just before 
the herring-fleet put out to sea, he went down to the 
quay with his wife and sons to hold a short parting 
service, when all joined in singing the old Prayer- 
book version of the 121st Psalm, as those only can 
who have death and danger staring them in the face. 


Then thou, my soul, in safety rest, 
Thy Guardian will not sleep. 

Shelter’d beneath th’ Almighty wings, 
Thou shalt securely rest. 


36 Man’s Partnership with 


The memories of those days are enshrined in the 
lines— 


For men must work, and women must weep; 
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep, 
Though the harbour bar be moaning! 


‘And they made this psalm, in its rough versification, 
more dear and speaking to him in after life than any 
hymn ancient or»modern of more artistic form.’ * 
The fisher-folk faced all dangers of their calling with 
those glorious thoughts lingering in their memory. 
Amid its tributes to Divine Providence the Psalter 
is not blind to those problems of human life and 
human society which in all ages have been so hard to 
understand. The enigmas presented by the sorrows of 
good men and the prosperity of the wicked are never 
far from the mind of Jewish psalmists. ‘Lord, how 
long wilt Thou look on?’ is the question (Ps. xxxv. 17). 


In those Psalms which relate to the contradiction existing 
between the moral worth of an individual and his external 
circumstances, we generally find that the knot is not untied, 
but simply cut through. The righteous man who seems 
about to perish must nevertheless be delivered, or Jehovah 
would not be Jehovah; therefore ‘for His Name’s sake’ 
the wicked, who thinks himself so secure, must perish, as 
surely as a righteous God exists.” 


The third book opens with ‘A Psalm of Asaph’ 
(Psalm lxxiii.). A good man confesses how the 


1 Charles Kingsley, i. 18. 
2 Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament, ii. p. 467. 


QE a yn 


Divine Providence ay 


prosperity of the wicked had almost wrecked his faith. 
He sees at length that the future must be taken into 
account in any estimate of human life. In the end 
it will be well with the righteous. The psalmist thus 
becomes content that Providence shall shape his path. 
He has grasped the truth that his life is linked to God, 
God is his companion, his keeper. 


Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, 
And afterward receive me to glory. 


Here the solution of a perplexing problem is ‘subjective 
and personal. The communion with God to which the 
psalmist has been admitted asserts itself with such 
strength, that he not only finds therein his full com- 
pensation for the prosperity of the wicked, but, rising 
for the moment superior to death and Sheol, knows 
himself to be inseparably united to God.’ ! 

The subject of Providence is the theme of that 
noble Jewish poem, the Book of Job, which has filled 
all readers with wonder. Thomas Carlyle expresses 
the judgement of every reverent student. 


I call that, apart from all theories about it, one 
of the grandest things ever written with pen. One 
feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a noble 
universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, 
reigns in it. A noble Book; all men’s Book! It is our 
first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem,—man’s 
destiny, and God’s ways with him here in this earth. 
And all in such free flowing outlines ; grand in its sincerity, 


1 Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament, ii, p. 468. 


38 Man’s Partnership with 


in its simplicity; in its epic melody, and repose of 
reconcilement. There is the seeing eye, the mildly under- 
standing heart... . . Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation ; 
oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind ;—so soft 
and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its 
seas and stars! ‘There is nothing written, I think, in the 
Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit. 


The book belongs to the Wisdom Literature of 
the Hebrews, where the perplexities and puzzles 
of natural life and the moral relations of man are 
discussed, and counsel given by the man of wisdom 
and experience. It is a wonderful study for those 
pre-Christian times. Dr. Oehler, in his suggestive 
discussion of the subject, points out that ‘all the 
enigmas with which Israelite wisdom was occupied 
are discussed in the Book of Job, and every solution 
produced upon Old Testament soil attempted’? It 
teaches that a good man must not be judged merely 
according to outward appearances, and ‘inculcates the 
duty of abstaining from hasty decisions concerning 
obscure providences.’ We must reserve judgement till 
the end of the drama. The book shows that there is a 
fourfold purpose in suffering. It is divine punishment 
on ungodliness; or it is due to the sinfulness of man, 
which brings its sorrows to the righteous as well 
as the wicked. The good man’s patient bearing of 
such chastisement may lead to restored prosperity 


1 The Hero as Prophet. 
2 Theology of the Old Testament, ii, pp. 472-4. 


Divine Providence 39 


(ch. xlii. 12-16). Suffering may also be imposed by 
the love of God to humble the good man and lead 
him to deeper knowledge of himself; or, as in Job’s 
case, it may be designed to manifest the real fidelity 
of the righteous man. The sufferer may be brought 
to the verge of despair, and may be made conscious 
of many blemishes in his own character through the 
fiery trial; yet his feet are found on the rock at last. 

A story is told of fiery trial which befalls a godly 
man (chs. i-iii.), The Hebrew poet lets his readers 
into the secret of Job’s sufferings. 


They formed, as so many sufferings form to-day, a God- 
permitted Satanic temptation, allowed in order to test the 
patriarch’s faith, and try whether his goodness was genuine, 
or whether his piety was after all a subtle form of selfish- 
ness, a serving God for what he could get out of Him. 
But of this neither the friends nor Job himself was aware. 
They only knew what they could see with the eye of sense. 
Here was a man who had lived in great prosperity, honoured 
and respected of all men, suddenly overwhelmed with 
calamity after calamity—his flocks and his herds destroyed, 
his. children dead, himself a victim of a most loathsome 
disease. What did it all mean? ‘That was the problem 
before them. What had they got to say to it? + 


Job’s threefold curse of his lot brings home the 
problem. A good man is stricken down by trouble. 
The prevailing belief of that day was that sorrow 
sprang from sin, This is brought out in the conversa- 
tion between Job and his three friends (chs, iv.-xxvi.). 


1 Gibson, The Book of Job, xiii, 


Ke) Man’s Partnership with 


Each of the friends states his view of Job’s affliction 
in turn, and to each Job makes reply (chs. iv.—xiv.). 
Eliphaz is more gentle and considerate, though he hints 
that Job’s case is one of secret sin meeting its penalty. 
He assumes that ‘all suffering is the punishment of 
sin,’ and fails to see that this does not touch the case 
of Job. The patriarch finds no comfort in this heartless 
theory, that adversity is to be interpreted as the frown 
of Providence on a man’s life. Bildad is less careful of 
Job’s feelings. He upholds stoutly the moral principle 
in the government of the world—goodness is rewarded, 
wickedness punished. Those hard words almost throw 
Job’s mind off its balance. His reply is ‘ wild and reck- 
less, He charges God with ‘deliberate cruelty and 
unfairness in His treatment of him.’ The depth of his 
anguish is seen in every phrase, and in his despair he 
cries for some relief before he passes into the land of 
darkness and the shadow of death. Zophar adds another 
bitter drop to the sufferer’s cup by telling him that he 
has come off better than he deserves. That unhappy 
speech provokes Job to assert himself— 
What ye know, the same do I know also; 
I am not inferior unto you (xiii. 2). 

The problem has now been discussed in the light of 
the prevailing theory. His friends apply it with less and 
less generosity and tact as the discussion proceeds, Job 
refuses to accept it as applicable to himself. He is 
conscious that his heart has been right with God, and is 
eager to plead his cause face to face with his Maker. 


Ie a ee ma 


iS. See ae SS ee 


—— 


Divine Providence AI 


One more thought has come to him in his agony, for 
finally there has arisen within him a great longing for a 
resurrection to a life after death; and his heart goes out 
towards this, as the one thing which, could he but believe 
it, would enable him to bear patiently all his present 
distress.’ 


The second circle of speeches covers seven chapters 
(xv.-xxi.), Job’s friends hold to their theory, but they are 
less careful of his feelings, more confident that his case 
is an illustration of it. ‘The grave Eliphaz is still the 
most gentlemanly of the three,’ but the cruel strain in 
Bildad and the coarseness of Zophar become more 
marked. Job himself is manifestly coming nearer to the 
light. He reaches the assured conviction of a future 
life and of God’s vindication of him. 


But I know that my redeemer liveth, 
And that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth (xix. 25). 


The facts of life do not sustain the arguments used 
against him. Wickedness is not invariably punished in 
this life, but glories in its prosperity (xxi.8-15). God’s 
moral government is not so simple and easy to under- 
stand as Job’s friends suppose. The mystery of suffer- 
ing lies deeper than they dreamed. He himself does 
not fathom it, but he sees that in the answers to which 
he has listened ‘there remaineth only falsehood’ 
(xxi. 34). He cannot explain his sorrows, but he begins 
to see a gleam of light, which helps him to possess his . 


1 Gibson, Book of Job, p. 73. 


42 Man’s Partnership with 


soul in patience and wait for some revelation of the 
purposes of God. 

In the third circle of speeches (chs, xxii.-xxvi.), 
Eliphaz is chief spokesman, but he only pushes home 
his old charge that Job is a sinner, whom he accuses 
of iniquities without end (xxii. 5-9). 

Job holds his ground. Bildad can only utter a few 
words; Zophar is stricken dumb. Job adds his tribute 
to God’s greatness (chs. xxvil.-xxxi.), 

Then he makes his confession of innocence and 
acknowledges that divine wisdom which towers high 
above human thought. ‘Man is utterly unable to 
understand the principles that rule in the world. He 
has his wisdom indeed, which is to “fear the Lord and 
to depart from evil,’ but to comprehend the world is 
quite beyond him.’? 

In a second speech, Job surveys his happy past in 
words which in ‘grace, and pathos, in charm of pic- 
turesque narrative, and pensive, tender, yet self-con- 
trolled emotion richly and variously expressed,’ have 
scarcely ever been surpassed. As Dr. Cox says, ‘He 
must be dull and hard indeed who can read these chap- 
ters without being touched to the very heart.’ It is 
Job’s Apologia pro vita sua; and as we see how tender 
and helpful this man has been to others in his days of 
prosperity, we understand the bitterness of his heart 
when he feared that God had forsaken him. The man 
who could say— 

* Gibson, Book of Job, p. 143. 


Se ye) ee eS Se x 


Divine Providence 43 


When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; 

And when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto me, 
could not accept the censure of his friends or believe 
that his affliction was due to his sin against God. 

After the three friends are silenced, Elihu takes up 
the discussion. His four speeches (chs. xxxii. 6-xxxvil.) 
present a new theory of suffering as the means of 
strengthening character. It is God’s discipline. Job 
has no right to murmur against the Almighty, who 
cannot do wickedly or pervert judgement. Elihu 
sternly rebukes the arrogance and the want of reverence 
displayed in his complaints against God. His provi- 
dence orders man’s life for his moral discipline and 
improvement. Elihu calls on the patriarch to consider 
the wondrous works of God and acquiesce in His deal- 
ings. The world is God’s world, and it is impossible for 
its Creator and Governor to be unjust. Providence has } 
its enigmas, but a solution of them will in due time 
be found. ‘Then the Lord answered Job out of the 
whirlwind’ (chs. xxxvili.—xl. 2). He is bidden to gird 
up his loins like a man and reply to God’s questions, 
They cover the whole circle of divine activity—the 
creation of the earth, the control of the sea, and all 
the wonders of inanimate nature; then God leads Job 
through the realms of life, where His providence pro- 
vides for the needs of every creature that He has made. 
After the survey of nature comes the great home-thrust— 


Shall he that cavilleth contend with the Almighty ? 
He that argueth with God, let him answer it (xl. 2). 


A4 Man’s Partnership with 


Job hag no desire to carry on a controversy with 
God. He lays his hand upon his mouth, and will 
proceed no further (ch. xl. 3-5). But the Almighty 
has not finished his lesson. Once more Job is called 
to gird up his loins like a man, and answer the divine 
questions (xl. 6-xli, 34). 


As he had questioned the principles of God’s rule he is 
ironically invited to assume the divine attributes, and rule 
the world himself. And as a test of his capabilities, two 
formidable creatures, the work of God’s hand like himself, 
are described at some length, and he is asked whether he 
can subdue them.’ 


The descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan—the 
hippopotamus and the crocodile—show God’s glory. 
in His works. The two speeches produce their in- 


tended result. Job is dumb in the presence of his . 


Maker. He pleads guilty to the charge of presumption 
in meddling with the affairs of Providence, and saying 
that there was no moral government of the world. He 
understands at last that the whole scheme of Divine 
Providence is too vast and difficult for man to com- 
prehend. God knows the way that He takes, and will 
watch over the development of all things as He 
watched over their beginning (ch. xlii. 1-6). 

That acquiescence in the rule of God is accepted. 
Job’s friends, who had been so blind and harsh in 
their judgement of his affliction, are rebuked, and the 


1 Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, p. 402. 


i 


Divine Providence A5 


life that had been clouded with trouble is crowned 
with the riches of providential favour. 

Dr. Gibson says Jn Memoriam ‘is well worthy study 
as a companion picture of a mind gradually righting 
itself in the face of a great problem of suffering.’ 


He faced the spectres of the mind, 
And laid them: thus he came at length 


To find a stronger faith his own; 
And Power was with him in the night, 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 
And dwells not in the light alone, 


But in the darkness and the cloud, 
As over Sinai’s peaks of old. 


The Hebrew prophets regard the world as the scene 
for the unfolding of God’s providence. He is on the 
side of righteousness ; His face is set against injustice 
and impurity. Man is to fulfil his part in God’s 
scheme by obedience to his Maker’s will. The divine 
curse igs pronounced on all tyranny, all hardness 
towards the poor, all selfish luxury won by oppression. 
As we read the Minor Prophets, we feel that man is 
at the bar of the God of Providence. ‘He hath showed 
thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord 
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God?’ (Micah vi. 8). 

One chapter in Isaiah stands out as the sublimest 
study of Providence in prophetic literature. Dr. A. B. 
Davidson’s title for the latter half of this fortieth 


1 In Memoriam, canto xcvyi. 


46 Man’s Partnership with 


chapter (verses 12-31) is ‘Jehovah, God of Israel, the 
Incomparable.’ Creation reveals His infinite power 
and wisdom. The starry world is sustained by His 
unfailing might. ‘For that He is strong in power 
not one is lacking. Man need not fear lest he 
should be overlooked by the Creator of the ends 
of the earth, ‘who fainteth not, neither is weary; 
there is no searching of His understanding.” Youth 
itself faints and utterly falls under the strain of life, 
but the God of Providence is a never-failing spring of 
help and grace to all who trust Him: ‘They that wait 
upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall 
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and 
not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint,’ 

The New Testament is a rich field for the student 
of this subject. Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount is 
His chief exposition and unfolding of the providence 
of God. The precepts there given to His disciples are 
‘all, ultimately, based on a certain view of God’s 
relation to man, namely, that we are the children of 
a Heavenly Father who cares for us and guides our 
lives. ‘Thus our lives are in every respect to havé a 
Godward aim,’ The demands made on obedience can 
only be met when that truth of Divine Providence is 
embraced and held fast. The Sermon has nothing to 
say of ‘a First Cause, conceived of, no matter how 
unphilosophically, as a Spirit Power which was able to 


" Lyttelton, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 4. 


Divine Providence 47 


set going the universe, and all its marvels, and then to 
remain aloof as a mere spectator of its subsequent 
history.’ The touch of God’s fatherly love for, and 
active intervention on behalf of, His creatures, 1s woven 
into the fibre of the whole discourse, and ‘our admira- 
tion of Christ’s teaching is, literally, not in spite of, but 
because of, its deep and simple recognition of an acting, 
benevolent God.’ ? 

The warning against anxiety is made reasonable 
by the illustrations drawn from Nature. God will not 
allow man’s ‘spiritual efforts to be spoilt by the 
physical life failing for want of support. In other 
words, we have to do with a Heavenly Father who is 
a God of bounty and loving-kindness, and who, having 
regard to the purpose of each created thing’s existence, 
gives without stint what is necessary for that purpose 
to be achieved.’ * If there were no Providence behind 
him the higher faculties and activities of man would be 
unable to fulfil themselves. The Sermon on the Mount 
makes great demands on the true disciple, but it opens 
his eyes to the Father’s care and love for all His 
creatures in a way that gives strength to meet them all. 

Such a portrait of God had never been painted for 
the world to gaze upon. ‘ Your Father’ knows and loves 
and lavishes His gifts even on the unkind and the 
unthankful. As we read the words of Jesus, the beloved 
Son, God seems to be brought down from the clouds to 


' Lyttelton, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 11. 
2 Thid. 3 Thid., p, 297, 


48 Man’s Partnership with 


our homes and hearts. The Divine Providence is the 
source of strength and help for the whole creation. 

But our Lord never allows Divine Providence to 
eclipse prudence and fidelity to earthly duty. All His 
teaching is based on the supposition that men will use 
their God-given powers wisely. If Human Providence 
is faithful to its trust, there is no room for fretting or 
anxious care. 

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteous- 
ness [Matt. vi. 33], is the counsel with which He concludes 
His special teaching on the relation of His disciples to the 
providence of the heavenly Father.’ 

The Sermon on the Mount sums up the spirit of the 
New Testament. Everything bears the stamp of Divine 
Providence. St. Paul’s life is shaped and ruled by it. 
Onesimus, the slave in Rome, reminds us of Joseph in 
Egypt. ‘For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, 
that thou shouldest receive him for ever’ (Philem. 15). 
The apostle’s teaching as to Providence is summed up 
in that classic passage: ‘We know that to them that 
love God all things work together for good, even to them 
that are called according to His purpose’ (Rom. viii. 28). 

Christianity [as Butler puts it] is not only an external 
institution of natural religion, and a new promulgation of 
God’s general providence, as righteous Governor and Judge 
of the world ; but it contains also a revelation of a particular 
dispensation of Providence, carrying on by His Son and 
Spirit, for the recovery and salvation of mankind, who are 
represented in Scripture to be in a state of ruin.* 


1 ¢ Providence,’ Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, 
2 Analogy, Part II. ch. i. § 14. 


q 


' 
*' 
. 


4 
> eS ee 


oo” 


rh ee 


ees SE a ee 


Divine Providence 49 


Redemption thus underlies all doctrines of Provi- 
dence. The salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ 
makes every other interposition of God for man 
reasonable, and contains them all in germ, 


For example, when Jacob, David, or any other psalmist 
applies it to one, or to a series of providences in his own 
behalf, or that of his country, he did so because a Re- 
demptional Providence is a necessary counterpart of a 
Redemptional Grace, and its relations to every human 
interest. That which saves and perfects the nature of 


man must entail upon him all minor interests as an 
appanage to itself. 


The last pages of the New Testament show how the 
roll which ‘contains and interprets human history,’ 
the complete unfolding of the purposes and providence 
of God, is opened by ‘the Lion that is of the tribe of 
Judah, the Root of David, who ‘hath Overcome, to 
open the book and the Seven Seals thereof? When 
the Lamb takes it into His hands the new song is 
sung: “Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to 
open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and didst 
purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every 
tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest 
them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests ; and 
they reign upon the earth’ (Rev. v. 5, 9, 10). 

The hymn-writers have been the most popular ex- 
ponents of the Bible doctrine of Providence. Luther’s 
faith in Providence glows in his battle hymn— 


* Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty, i. 147 


so Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


A safe stronghold our God is still (466). 

Out of the depths I ery to Thee (514) 
helped him to ‘defy the devil and praise God’ during 
the diet of Augsburg. George Neumark’s 

Leave God to order all thy ways (406) 
was written in memory of unlooked-for providential 
succour. Gerhardt has sustained the hearts of a great 
multitude by the verses which John Wesley translated—- 


Commit thou all thy griefs (480). 
Give to the winds thy fears (481). 


No hymn strikes a bolder note than Sternhold’s 
O God, my strength and fortitude (14). 
Dr. Watts is represented by 


My Shepherd will supply my need (87). 
O God, our help in ages past (812). 


Doddridge’s prayer never fails to meet our need— 

O God of Bethel, by whose hand (95). 
Charles Wesley's hymns are a book of Providence 
which record the mercies of his own life, and a poetic 
history of the gracious Providence which watched over 
every step of the Evangelical Revival. Wales con- 
tributes a noble hymn, 

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah (615) ; 


and Cowper touches the double chord of mystery in 
Sometimes a light surprises (479), 


and in ‘ the greatest hymn on divine providence ’— 
God moves in a mysterious way (488). 


The numbers are those of The Methodist Hymn- Book. 


IV 


PROVIDENCE IN OTHER 
RELIGIONS 


Tidyres 5& Gedy yaréovo’ dvOpwro: (All men have need of gods).— 
Odyssey, 3. 48. 

Dedit hoe Providentia hominibus munus, ut honesta magis javarent. 
—QUINTILIAN, 


Tie up your camel as best you can, and then trust it to Providence. 
—MoHAMMED. 


But no desire nor hope of common advantage to come can move or 
unite Arabians: neither love they too well that safeguarding human 
forethought, which savours to them of untrust in an heavenly Provi- 
dence. Their religion encourages them to seek medicines—which 
God has created in the earth to the service of man; but they may not 
flee from the pestilence.—Doveuty’s Wanderings in Arabia (Garnett’s 
abridgement), ii. 188. 


Heathenism is religion ‘run wild? But, on the other hand, not 
only does it seem unjust to grant to the heathen no sort of share in 
preparing the way for the absolute religion, but it is to be considered 
that the all-embracing rule of Divine Providence in these wide tracts 
of humanity cannot have been without result.—Dornemr, A System of 
Christian Doctrine, ii. 237. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Providence and Comparative Religion ° : . Sea 
Faith in a form and measure of Providential help inoue universal 55 


In Egypt and Persia . . . 
Providence in Homer and Honee . 
In the life of Athens. . . ‘ : ‘ : 
The irony of Xenophanes . . ‘ ; : ; : ‘ . 68 
Anaxagoras on Nature . 


e . s e e s 55 


e . e e . . . . 59 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle . . . . . ‘ A - esis? 
Poets and Historians . 5 ‘ ; ° ° ; ° ° + OL 


Epicurean and Stoic teaching : : : ° ° 
Zeno and Cleanthes . . : ; ‘ : ° ‘ y - 64 
Stoic teachers in Rome . : s ° : , nt 65 
Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius . 


‘ : oo etae 
Criticism by Professor James . : ‘ F f ; «69 
Roman religion . ° . : . : . : « 10 
Mohammedanism and Peden ; . ° < nh eS. 
Providence in the religions of India ‘ ‘ ‘ ° , PS 
Buddhism no Divine Providence . ‘ ‘ : : a Se 
Confucius and Heaven , ; : ; ‘ , ‘ Pay (iS 
Crude beliefs of early times . , é : ; Prats | 
Providence in the religions of Peru and Moxie . ‘ ‘ - 7 
Beliefs of North American Indians . : ‘ : ‘ ; Aee 


The conclusions reached . d ‘ : : ' P : 80 


LITERATURE 


Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature; Alexander, History of 
Greek Philosophy; Davidson, The Stoic Creed; Golden Sayings of 
Epictetus ; Marcus Aur elius, ‘To Himself’ ; Menzies, History of Religion ; 
Geden, Studies in Comparative Religion ; Studies in Eastern Religions ; 
Scullard, Harly Christian Ethics; Lux Mundi; Monier Williams, Jndian 
Wisdom; Haigh, Some Leading Ideas of Hinduism; Legge, Life and 
Teaching of Confucius; The Japanese Spirit; E, Dale, National Life and 
Character in the Mirror of Early English Literature ; Payne, History of 
the New World called America. 


IV 


consider the views as to Divine Providence 

which were accepted in the ancient world outside 
Judaism, and which are held in regions beyond the 
Christian pale to-day. The theology of our time is not 
blind to the light shining in those outer courts of the 
temple. The science of comparative religion les in 
germ in St. Paul’s speech to the philosophers of Athens. 
The Jewish scholar is no stranger to the study which 
exerts a fascination over our generation. He gives 
apostolic sanction to a wisely considered and en- 
lightened view of this subject. No yawning chasm 
stretches between himself and the company gathered 
on Mars’ Hill. They are children of the same Father, 
they are dwellers in the same world; they are being 
divinely guided towards the same goal. The destiny 
of their race and of his own is shaped by the same 
Divine Providence. ‘He made of one every nation of 
men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having 
determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of 
their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply 
they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He 


| may be well at this stage of our inquiry to 


54 Man’s Partnership with 


is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, 
and move, and have our being; as certain even of your 
own poets have said, For we are also His offspring * 
(Acts xvil. 26-8), 
St. Paul was quoting from Aratus, a native of his 
own province of Cilicla— 
From God begin we—who can touch the string 
And not harp praise to Heaven’s eternal king? 
shot He animates the mart and crowded way, 
% The restless ocean, and the sheltered bay. 


Does care perplex? Is lowering danger nigh? 
We are His offspring, and to God we fly. 


To look into the heart and mind of men of other 
faiths and see how they regarded these vital questions 
is profoundly impressive and instructive. What care 
did the gods in whom they believed take of them and 
their affairs? How far did heaven understand their 


life and enter into it ? 
Dr. Bruce wished to embark on a study of Provi- 
dence in Pagan, Hebrew, and Modern Thought. 


One would like to know how the question of Providence 
presented itself to men in different lands and ages, familiar 
with the facts of life, and given to earnest reflection 
thereon; especially to men belonging to peoples among 
whom the ethical consciousness reached a high measure of 
intensity—such as the ancient Indians and Persians, the 
Greeks, and above all the Hebrews. Such knowledge 
might not only gratify intellectual curiosity, but prove 
helpful to faith.’ 


’ Bruce, The Providential Order, pp. 22-3. 


Divine Providence 55 


Religion has been defined as ‘the expression of 
human needs with reference to higher beings who are 
supposed to be capable of fulfilling man’s desires.’ ! 

Faith in a form and measure of providential guid- 
ance seems to be wellnigh universal. Even in the 
lowest forms of religion we trace belief in a higher 
power external to man, a belief hazy and ill-outlined 
it may be, but still real ; in a power that can help or 
injure, and to which reverence and service are due. 

The ancient Egyptians had a faith in ‘a supreme 
God, self-existing and eternal, creator of all things,’ 
but this was often joined with a mass of super- 
stitions. Men had to defend their lives by incanta- 
tions from all manner of imagined perils, and put 
their trust in ‘a childish magic, for the nearest parallel 
to which we must go to the negroes of Central or 
Western Africa. The conception of Destiny or Fate 
was not unlike that of the Greeks. 

A hymn as old as the time of Moses has been 
preserved which shows an enlightened faith in an 
overruling Providence. 


Praise to Amen-Ra, 

The good God beloved, 

Giving life to all animated things: 

to all fair cattle: 

Maker of men, Creator of beasts: 

Lord of existences, Creator of fruitful trees : 
Maker of herbs, Feeder of cattle.% 


1 Menzies, History of Religion, p. 424. 
2 Geden’s Studies in Comparative Religion, pp. 8, 47, 66, 67. 
3 Records of the Past, ii, 129. 


56 Man’s Partnership with 


In Persia Zoroaster looked on the world as a theatre 
where the Good Spirit, ‘lord of the whole universe, 
creator of all, author and giver of light and life, and of 
everything that is good,’ wages a never-ending conflict 
with the hurtful power to whom are due darkness, 
death, and every form of evil. Men took sides in this 
conflict according to their own nature, but good was 
destined to triumph. ‘In the conflict of these powers 
lay the idea of Providence, controlling the evil.’ ? 

The most gifted nation of antiquity almost regarded 
Homer and Hesiod as their Bible. In the Ziad and 
Odyssey the gods rule over separate realms, in which 
they have a ‘vague omnipotence. Their providence 
watches over cities and nations, though they sometimes 
reproach each other for taking human affairs too 
seriously. Their home above the clouds is hidden from 
the sight of men. 


They favour and protect their worshippers ; they take 
part with this or that warrior ; they resent the death of 
their sons, and in other ways are moved by passion and 
desire. Zeus exercises a sort of limited monarchy over 
this distracted realm; in the long run he controls it 
absolutely, for his will and the determination of fate are 
one.? 


Zeus is thus ‘a kind of providence in whom a man 
Pp 


may trust when he does right, and to all whose dis- 
pensations it behoves him humbly to submit.’ 8 
' Pope, A Higher Catechism of Theology, p. 110. 


? Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 56. 
* Menzies, History of Religion, p. 286. 


Divine Providence 57 


The story of Odysseus depicts a life enriched and 
saved from wreck by the favour of the gods. ‘ Faith- 
fulness, patience, endurance, temperance, are sure of 
their reward.’ ! 

If Athens be taken as representing Greek views on 
Providence, we find Zeus there worshipped as the pro- 
tector of the city. He presides ‘over the council, 
the assembly, the family, the phratry, the dues of 
hospitality, of friendship, and of comradeship, com- 
bining the attributes of a universal and particular 
providence.’ ? 

Apollo’s altar stood before the chief entrance of all 
the more important houses, so that he was ‘in a manner 
omnipresent. And if he ever seemed to be absent, was 
he not named Bondpdmos, “runner to the rescue,’ on 
whom pious hearts might call in distress ?’® 

Glaucus says in his prayer to Apollo, ‘Everywhere 
canst thou hear a man in sorrow such as my sorrow 
is’ 4 Apollo’s sister, Artemis, was the woman’s Provi- 
dence, whilst Athene was an additional providence to 
protect, enlighten, ‘guide, and instruct her favoured 
people. 

Homer attributes omniscience to the gods, though 
some episodes of the Zliad do not bear out this view. 
Pindar’s theology marks a distinct advance here. The 
just are specially cared for by God. ‘Surely the 


great mind of Zeus pilots the destiny of those whom 


1 Menzies, History of Religion, p. 99, 2 Thid., p. 212. 
* Thid., p, 214. 4 Iliad, xvi. 516, 


em 


58 Man’s Partnership with 


he loves.’ Heraclitus had already spoken of ‘the 
intelligence by which all things are piloted through 
all.” His idea of Providence is that of a principle 
which includes both nature and man in its sway, but 
Pindar’s thought is narrower and more personal. ? 

In the course of ages enlightened men grew im- 
patient with the ancestral religion. Xenophanes (born 
about 570 B.c.) ridiculed the anthropomorphism of 
Homer and Hesiod, and resented their ascription of 
human passion to the gods. The irony which he poured 
on the old beliefs showed that the national conscience 
was aroused. Morality had outgrown religion. The 
Athenian philosopher felt that to copy his divinities 
would spoil his world, 

Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod 


As to mankind would be shame and abiding disgrace, 
Promises broken, and thefts and mutual treachery.? 


His own theology is given in a fragment of his 
poetry— 
One God of all things, divine and human the greatest : 


Neither in body alike unto mortals, nor in spirit : 
Without labour he ruleth all things, by reason and insight. 


The shock of this attack which Xenophanes made 
on traditional beliefs was terrible. ‘ Religion in Greece 
received its death-blow.’ 4 

‘ Adam, The Religious Teachers of Greece, pp. 120-1. 
* Karlton’s Xenophanes Fragment, vii. 


* Alexander, History of Greek Philosophy, p. 18. 
* Lux Mundi, p. 70. 


Divine Providence 59 


A century later Anaxagoras (born about 500 B.C.) 
grappled with the problems of the universe. In a work 
on Nature he taught that vode, or reason, governs the 
world. Its inert, chaotic constituents had been set in 
motion and combined into one harmonious system by a 
mind working towards special ends. His view was vague 
and unsatisfactory. Nature was not ruled over by sell- 
conscious reason, but was subject to universal laws. 
This was the first instance of a teleological explanation 
of the universe, and laid the basis for later arguments 
from design. Such a glimpse into the workshop of 
Providence, given by this friend of Pericles, marks an 
epoch in the thought of the city which already gloried 
in the Parthenon and the masterpieces of Phidias, Its 
contrast to the contemporary teaching of the Old 
Testament is almost startling. Yet his view that the 
universe was the work of intelligence made Anaxa- 
goras seem ‘like a sober man amongst random talkers.’ 4 
Both Plato and Aristotle ‘accuse him of losing the 
truth which he had gained because he made intelli- 
gence appear only on occasions in the world, dragged 
in, like a stage-god, when naturalistic explanations 
failed,’ 2 

Socrates saw a Providence in the arrangement and 
adaptation of the world. ‘Where knowledge cannot 
reach Socrates seems to put forth a faith in Providence, 


1 Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 12; Alexander, Short History of 
Philosophy, pp. 29-30. 
* Lux Mundi, p. 93. 


60 Man’s Partnership with 


falling back on his daimonion for inspiration where 
insight fails,’ ? 

That inward voice was his own secret counsellor in 
all times of perplexity. He held that men should 
exert themselves to obtain what the gods had placed 
within their reach, and only turn to prayer and divina- 
tion in cases of perplexity and doubt. Every prayer 
must be offered ‘with the reservation that such and 
such a wish should be accomplished only if God saw 
that it was for good.’ ? 

Plato was the disciple of Socrates for the last eight 
years of that great master’s life. He then travelled 
widely in Egypt, Italy, and Sicily, and came home 
enriched with ideas to take up his work as a teacher of 
philosophy in Athens, He sympathized with the views 
of Xenophanes, and proposed to establish a censorship 
of the poets so that their objectionable stories about the . 
gods might be cut out. He did not hesitate to charge 
them with ‘the fault of telling a lie, and a bad lie,’ 
In his view God was perfect and unchangeable; true 
and the author of truth. The world was an emanation 
from God, who fashioned it out of matter which was 
eternal and partly intractable. He cannot be the 
author of evil; and if He afflicts mankind it is to purify 
them from unrighteousness. A lofty view of God’s 
relation to man is thus opened out by this great thinker 
of Greece. 


1 Alexander, Greek Philosophy, p. 42. 
2 Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 331. 
* Jowett’s Republic, p. 60. 


Divine Providence 61 


In his Spirit of the Laws, Plato shows those who 
disbelieved in Divine Providence that 


the ruler of the universe has ordered all things with a view 
to the preservation and perfection of the whole, and each 
part has an appointed state of action and passion ; and the 
- smallest action or passion of any part affecting the minutest 
fraction has a presiding minister. And one of these por- 
tions of the universe is thine own, stubborn man, which, 
however little, has the whole in view ; and you donot seem 
to be aware that this and every other creation is for the 
sake of the whole, and in order that the life of the whole 
may be blessed ; and that you are created for the sake of 
the whole, and not the whole for the sake of you.’ 


Aristotle believed in an Intelligence which had set 
in motion the whole universe. Nature is rational from 
beginning to end. ‘The universe is a thought in the 
mind of God, and man is God’s thought becoming 
self-conscious.’ ? 


God [in his view] is the ground of all movement, the 
support of order and life; but He is above the world 
and does not interfere directly with it. No true contact 
and commerce between God and man is possible.® 


Such limitations of Providence are referred to with 
disapproval by Tatian and Ambrose.‘ 

We pass from the philosophers, who are the glory of 
Athens, to the great dramatists. Aeschylus and Sophocles 
1 Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 398. 

2 Alexander, Greek Philosophy, p. 69. 


$ Scullard, Early Christian Ethics, p. 44. 
* Ibid., p. 42. 


62 Man’s Partnership with 


believe in a divine order which upholds the supremacy of 
the eternal laws of holiness and purity. To infringe these 
brings inevitable disaster. Aeschylus maintains that 
the gods of Olympus, ‘ who are so full of loving-kindness 
and wise providence,’ are like the terrible gods of 
the nether world, working out the law of righteousness 
under the constraint of ‘necessity.’ Aeschylus makes 
it clear that the troubles of Oedipus do not shake the 
faith of the old blind king or the chorus of Athenian 
elders in Providence. ‘Oedipus rises far above Lear 
in dignity, though not in pity; just because his 
troubles come from the gods or from fate; and he 
reconciles himself even to them in the end.’? 

Euripides seems largely to have lost faith in a 
divine providence, and the cloud of pessimism settled 
down on his work.? 

Sophocles speaks of misfortunes foretold by Apollo, 
but ‘they rain down alike on the just and the 
unjust.’ 3 

Herodotus, the father of history, teaches that it is 
not possible for man to avert the decisions of Providence. 
Before the battle of Plataia (479 B.c.) a Theban gave 
a feast to the Persian generals. One of them told 
Thersander that after a little time few of the army 
would be alive. He expressed his feeling that this 
was inevitable. 

1 Jebb, Greek Literature, p. 82. 


2 Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, pp. 305-10. 
3 Edinburgh Review, No, 423, pp. 183-6, 


Divine Providence 63 


Friend, that which is destined to come from God, it is 
impossible for a man to avert ; for no man is willing to follow 
counsel, even when one speaks that which is reasonable. 
And these things which I say many of us Persians know 
well; yet we go with the rest being bound in the bonds of 
necessity ; and the most hateful grief of all human griefs 
is this, to have knowledge of the truth but no power over 
the event.’ 


The later schools of Greek philosophy represented 
by the Epicureans and Stoics held antagonistic views 
as to Providence. The Epicureans shut out from their 
‘explanation of Nature everything that would suggest 
government, or law, or adaptation.’? To them the Stoic 
belief in Providence appeared but ‘a refined illusion,’ 3 
Epicurus was noted for gentleness and humanity, and 
that spirit was cultivated by his disciples, but his 
whole system was anti-religious. The gods were 
indifferent to human affairs or cared only for more 
important matters. Hume says justly that Epicurus 
denied ‘a divine existence, and consequently a 
providence and a future state.’ 4 

The attitude of the school is well described by 
Professor Gwatkin. 


\ 


The Epicureans could find no better plan than that of 
respectfully moving the gods upstairs out of the way. 


' Herodotus, ix. 16, G. C. Macaulay’s translation. 

* Alexander, Greek Philosophy, p. 95. 

3 Tbid., p. 96. 

* Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, sect. xi. 


64 Man’s Partnership with 


They were too blessed, forsooth, to concern themselves 
with the affairs of men.’ 


According to the Stoics the Epicurean doctrine that 
the world had arisen by a fortuitous concourse of atoms 
gave a wrong conception of Providence, and made all 
things an inexplicable riddle. Stoicism had its Greek 
and its Roman period. For the views of the first 
masters of the school our material is scanty. Zeno, 
the founder, who flourished about 308 B.c., identified 
Fate as Providence. The supreme being is under 
the sway of Moira, who rules human affairs, Cleanthes 
rejected the identification of Fate with Providence ‘in 
face of the existence of evil in the world; for evil, he 
thought, though fated, cannot be said to owe its being 
to forethought or providence—though predetermined it 
is not foreordained.’ His explanations of the universe 
were ‘strenuously materialistic,’ yet he infuses ‘into 
his submission to the Cosmic Order such an amount of 
willing acquiescence as to give us the impression of 
the deepest religious feeling. ‘Lead me, O Zeus,” he 
cries, “ and thou, destiny, whithersoever I am ordained 
by you to go, I will follow without hesitation. And 
even if, in evil mood, I will not, none the less must I 
follow.” ’? 

Cleanthes was the author of that Hymn to Zeus 
which is an epitome of Stoic theology and ‘the 
perfection of Stoic prayers.’ It begins— 


1 The Knowledge of God, i. 282. 
* Davidson, The Stoic Creed, p, 229. 


Divine Providence 65 


Above all gods most glorious, invoked by many a name, 
almighty evermore, who didst found the world and guidest 
all by law—O Zeus, hail! for it is right that all mortals 
address Thee. We are Thine offspring, alone of mortal 
things that live and walk the earth moulded in image of 
the All; therefore, Thee will I hymn and sing Thy might 
continually. ‘Thee doth all this system that rolls round 
the earth obey in whatsoever path Thou guidest it, and 
willingly is it governed by Thee. ... Without Thee, O 
Divinity, no deed is done on earth, nor in the ethereal 
vault divine, nor in the deep, save only what wicked men 
do in the folly of their hearts. Nay more, what is uneven, 
Thy skill doth make even ; what knew not order, it setteth 
in order ; and things that strive find all in Thee, a friend. 
For thus hast Thou fitted all, evil with good, in one great 
whole, so that in all things reigns one reason everlastingly.' 


Seneca teaches that God is subject to the power 
of Fate. He cannot change the substance of the 
universe. It is not God who rolls along the thunder, 
but Fate. The most enlightened teachers of the school 
shook off this thraldom in some measure. To them 
Fate was the embodiment of law and order. Human 
actions must be followed by certain consequences, and 
even the deity did not act capriciously. He had regard 
to law and order, so that reason guided the world. 

But the best men had little comfort to give to those 
who frequented their lecture-rooms. Panaetius and 


1 Davidson, The Stoic Creed, pp. 235-6. 

2 ¢Trrevocabilis humana pariter ac divina cursus yehit’ (De Provi- 
dentia, v. 6). 

3 Davidson, The Stoic Creed, p. 228. 


66 Man’s Partnership with 


Posidonius, the two teachers who were largely the 
means of introducing Stoicism into Rome, ‘denied the 
immortality of the soul, rejected the idea of Providence, 
and admitted no particular or special revelation, The 
simile of human life was the dog tied behind the 
carriage.’ ! 

Posidonius was the teacher of Cicero. Ritter main- 
tains that Cicero: did not believe in Providence, Zeller 
and Dr. Mayor think that he did. For him Providence 
is part of Prudence. The great Roman orator does not 
hesitate to express the view that all things are carried 
on under the supervision of the gods: ‘ Deorum mode- 
raminoe cuncta geri. To him also we owe the saying, 
‘Maena dii curant, parva negligunt.’® His discussion 
of the subject ends in the ‘lame and impotent con- 
clusion’ that the speech of Cotta, who argued in 
defence of the being and providence of God, seemed \ 
more probable than what his opponent had advanced 
to the contrary.‘ 

If this is the position of an enlightened teacher we 
can understand the attitude of less noble minds. ‘A 
disbelief in the ancient gods and a doubt of all divine 
Providence is a matter of open profession at the begin- 
ning of the Christian era.’ ° 

Stoicism culminated in three great teachers of its 


1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 139. 
2 Scullard, Harly Christian Ethics, p. 56. 

3 De Natura Deorum, ii. 66. 

4 Wesley, Works, vi. 314. 

5 Tux Mundi, p. 148. 


Divine Providence | 67 


Roman period—Seneca (3-65 A.D.), Epictetus, who left 
Rome in 94 A.p., and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus 
(121-180 a.p.). Seneca wrote a treatise on Providence 
in which he insists on the immense value of hardships 
and difficulties in producing manly spirits. Men are 
compared to soldiers and sailors who must become 
inured to danger, or to trees rooted by wind and 
tempest. 

Epictetus, the cripple and slave who became a 
teacher of Stoicism in Rome, is a convinced Theist. 
The hero whom he describes did not lament at leaving 
his children orphans, for he ‘knew that no man is an 
Orphan, but it is the Father that careth for all con- 
tinually and for evermore. Not by mere report had 
he heard that the Supreme God is the Father of men: 
seeing that he called Him Father, believing Him so to 
be, and in all that he did had ever his eyes fixed upon 
Him. Wherefore in whatever place he was, there it 
was given him to live happily.’ ? 

His Golden Sayings open thus— 

Are these the only works of Providence in us? What 
words suffice to praise or set them forth? Had we but 
understanding, should we ever cease hymning and blessing 
the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and telling of 
His gracious gifts? God [he says later] hath placed by the 
side of each a man’s own Guardian Spirit, who is charged 
to watch over him—a Guardian who sleeps not nor is 
deceived.? 


1 Golden Sayings of Epictetus, cxxiv. 
2 Tbid., I, xxxvii. 


68 Man’s Partnership with 


He holds up his head among men as one whose 
‘thoughts have been the thought of a Friend of the 
Gods—of a servant, yet of One that hath a part in the 
government of the Supreme God.’ ? 

The Roman Emperor is a still more interesting 
exponent of this subject. Dean Merivale says he 
‘advances beyond Epictetus, seeming to arrive at a 
genuine conviction of a moral Providence.’* He is not 
slow to discern that it is ‘either an ordered Universe, 
or else a welter of confusion. Assuredly, then, a 
world-order. Or think you that order subsisting within 
yourself is compatible with disorder in the All.’® 


Refresh yourself with the alternative: either a fore- 
seeing providence, or blind atoms—and all the abounding 
proofs that the world is, as it were, a city.* 


Providence pervades God’s world. The workings of 
chance are part of nature, the web and woof of the disposi- 
tions of Providence. From Providence flows a!l; and side by 
side with it is necessity and the advantage of the Universe, 
of which you are a part.° 


The Deity is the Reason of the World and Divine 
Forethought or Providence (rpévo). In Aurelius we 
have a calm, reiterated insistence, an 


unqualified belief in the wisdom, righteousness, and good- 
ness of Providence, ie. of the World-Order (personality 


1 Golden Sayings of Epictetus, cxix. 

2 Romans under the Empire. 

3 Marcus Aurelius, ‘To Himself, Dr. Rendall’s edition, iy. 27. 
Soave ake 

5 Aur. Med., ii. 3. 


Divine Providence 69 


being out of count), and implicit trust therein. Whatever 
befalls us here, and whenever it befalls us, is and must be 
for the best ; for it is conducive to the good of the whole, 
and what is serviceable to the whole cannot be prejudicial 
to any one of its parts. | 

The World-course, proceeding uniformly, and not 
capriciously, or at mere random, is synonymous with the 
presidency and overruling providence of God. ... The 
individual and the community alike are under the rule and 
forethought of the Supreme : i.e. in regard to great things, 
for small things seemed to the Stoic (though not at all 
times) too insignificant to attract the divine care—magna 
dit curant, parva negligunt. In this way, Providence being 
both universal and special, no man should be over-anxious 
about what is to happen to him here: all is graciously and 
wisely ordered. A man’s lot and the circumstances of life 
are both in the hands of the Deity. He is part of the 
whole; and God cares for the whole, and, therefore, for 
the parts.’ 


Yet the sunshine is lacking. Professor James 
says— 

When Marcus Aurelius reflects on the eternal reason that 
has ordered things, there is a frosty chill about his words 
which you rarely find in a Jewish, and never in a Christian 
piece of religious writing. Compare his fine sentence, ‘ If 
God care not for me or my children, here is a reason for 
it,’ with Job’s cry : ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust 
in Him!’ And you immediately see the difference I mean. 
The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal 
destiny the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and 
submitted to, but the Christian God is there to be loved ; 
and the difference of emotional atmosphere is like that 


1 Davidson, The Stoic Creed, p. 211. 


70 Man’s Partnership with 


between the arctic climate and the tropics, though the 
outcome in the way of accepting actual conditions uncom- 
plainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much the 
same.’ 


Aurelius shows some advance beyond Epictetus. 
‘The pupil is wiser than his master, and seems to 
arrive at a genuine conviction of a moral providence.’ * 
Yet for Marcus Aurelius, the noblest representative of 
his school, God is ‘still far away, that mysterious 
power of fate with whom it is impossible to make an 
eternal covenant, that Sublime Being who is of such 
a nature that any contact with the world would defile 
Him,’ 3 

Nevertheless, if we leave the religion of Israel out 
of account, that of Rome was the flower of the ancient 
world. 


The higher the conception of the divine, the harder it 
is to make men live constantly in its presence, as the old 
Romans did. At every step of life he referred him to the 
gods by sacrifice, libation, or other observance, and at every 
undertaking inquired of them by omens or augury. Holy 
days were frequent, but holy rites never ceased. In some 
ways the old Roman is the very best of the ancient 
heathens. . .. The high moral tone of Roman life was a 
marvel to Greeks in the time of Polybius ; and they were 
not mistaken in tracing it to religion, though it was no 
direct result of religion. There was nothing moral in the 
religion itself beyond the fact that it was a religion of some 

1 The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 42. Cf. a still finer 
contrast by Matthew Arnold, Victoria Magazine, November, 1863, 


2 Merivale, The Romans under the Empire, vii. 616-7. 
* Yon Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 14. 


Divine Providence 71 


sort. The gods were no givers of spiritual things, and the 
Roman’s prayer was always for natural benefits like health, 
good crops, or victory in war.? 


Mohammedanism is marked by a lofty faith in 
Divine Providence. That does not surprise us when 
we bear in mind Mohammed’s debt to the Hebrew 
Scriptures. He made good use of his material. In 
his view Man is the creature of God, from whom he 
receives all the blessings of life. The Throne Verse, 
often repeated after the five daily prayers and inscribed 
in mosques, runs thus— 


God, there is no God but He, the living, the self-subsist- 
ing. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. His is what is in 
the heavens and what is in the earth. ... His throne 
extends over the heavens and the earth, and it burdens Him 
not to guard them both, for He is high and great. 


Other passages bring out the same truth. 


Say, O God, Lord of the kingdom! ‘Thou givest the 
kingdom to whomsoever Thou pleasest, and strippest the 
kingdom from whomsoever Thou pleasest ; Thou honourest 
whom Thou pleasest, and abasest whom Thou pleasest ; in 
Thy hand is good. Verily, Thou art mighty over all. 
Thou dost turn night to day, and dost turn day to night, 
and dost bring forth the living from the dead, and dost 
provide for whom Thou pleasest without taking count. 


The throne of the Eternal ‘stretcheth over heaven 
and earth, and the protection of them both is no burden 
to Him,’ * The Divine Will is laid upon all. 


1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii, 133-5. 
2 Qurin, Sara of the Cow. 


72 Man’s Partnership with 


All evil, no less than all good, proceeds from the eternal 
will of God. The decrees of kismet or fate rule all ; from 
them there is no appeal, as there is no possibility of offering 
resistance.’ 


The missionaries of Islam affirmed that ‘there ex- 
isted a Sultan in the sky, a God, sovereign in His right 
as Creator, unbound even by His own character, who 
out of pure will sent these to heaven and those to hell, 
who was Fate as well as God.’ ? 

Yet despite this firm belief in God and in a future 
life where virtue will be rewarded and vice punished, 
Mohammedanism makes man a puppet in the hands 
of an omnipotent Providence. Its belief that every 
man’s fate was bound round his neck? destroyed the 
motives to progress and undermined national life. Islam 
is thus fettered by its creed. Earl Cromer says— 


Christian nations are bound to advance, but Mohamme- 
danism has blocked its own road towards higher things. 
His view of Providence as Fate comes out in his worship. 
The Moslem generally utters certain set formulae of adoration; 
he rarely prays for specific objects.* 


That is the verdict of a practical administrator who 
~ has watched Mohammedanism at work. It is supported 
by one of our greatest theologians. 


‘ Geden, Studies in Comparative Religion, p. 268. 
* Townsend, Asia and Europe, p. 49. 

* Sfira xvii. 14. 

* Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt, ii. 145, 229. 


Divine Providence 73 


The tendency of Mohammed’s monotheism was to 
emphasize exclusively the infinitude of the gulf between the 
Creator and His creatures, without any adequate recognition 
of their correlation. The Creator is regarded simply in His 
transcendence, as the Author of absolute decrees ; and the 
creature remains in all his creaturely infirmity. There is 
no mediator between the two, nor anything analogous to 
the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit, whose indwelling 
presence is a perpetual principle of progressive development. 
No such injunction, therefore, as ‘Be ye perfect,’ no 
presentation of an absolute standard, is possible. Morality 
remains relative and stereotyped in its relativity, with no 
higher sanction than that of ultimate rewards and punish- 
ments of a purely relative and human type. ‘There is thus 
no scope for that progressive development or realization of 
our personality, that attainment of reality through personal 
union with the absolute source of reality, which is alike the 
demand of reason and the promise of Christ." te 


The Indian religions afford a wide field for the 
student of Providence. In the Veda, Indra, the lord 
of rain and thunderstorm, makes the earth fruitful by 
refreshing showers. One hymn in his praise speaks of 
him almost as the God of Providence. eM 


O Indra, a thousand have been thy helps accorded to us, 
a thousand, O driver of the bays, have been thy most 
delightful viands. May thousands of treasures richly to 
enjoy, may goods come to us a thousandfold. 


Varuna is praised in words which almost echo the 
139th Psalm. 


1 Illingworth, Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 185-6. 


74, Man’s Partnership with 


The Mighty Varuna, who rules above, looks down 

Upon these worlds, his kingdom, as if close at hand. 
When men imagine they do aught by stealth, he knows it. 
No one can stand or walk or softly glide along 

Or hide in dark recess, or lurk in secret cell, 

But Varuna detects him and his movements spies. 

Two persons may devise some plot, together sitting 

In private and alone; but he, the king, is there— 

A third, and sees it all.! 


This is Providence as seen in the sacred books of 
Hinduism. But the doctrine of transmigration practi- 
cally denies Providence. 


If it leaves God at all to the world, as Hindus would 
insist that it does, it leaves Him only as a distant, silent, 
uninterfering and practically uninterested Observer of the 
processes which, perchance, He instituted, but which He 
has no power either to change or arrest.” 


The Vedantist’s aspiration is to be ‘one with © 
Brahma.’ He has no real object of religious affection, 
no Being to whom he can pray.’ There is no room for 
Providence here. 

The Hinduism of the villages of India to-day is 
described by Sir Monier Williams as demonophobia. 


They are haunted and oppressed by a perpetual dread 
of demons. They are firmly convinced that evil spirits of 
all kinds, from malignant fiends to merely mischievous 
imps and elves, are ever on the watch to harm, harass, 


‘ Monier Williams, Indiun Wisdom, p. 16. 
* Haigh, Some Leading Ideas of Hinduism, p. 27. 
* Tbid., pp. 80, 123. 


Divine Providence 75 


and torment them, to cause plague, sickness, famine and 
disaster, to impede, injure, and mar every good work.’ 


In some villages in the South of India no hut 1s 
permitted to have its door facing towards the south, lest it 
should facilitate the entrance of a demon. Kvery tree, 
every rock, every stream, the very winds themselves have 
their appropriate devil ; whose evil designs must if possible 
be turned aside by offerings. Moreover every village has 
its own tutelary deities, who watch over it and the fields 
of the peasants. Every house has its household gods.? 


A constant round of religious observances is gone 
through by the Hindu to meet his obligations to some 
god or other, or to avert the wrath of some demon. No 
gracious light of Providence shines upon these troubled 
lives. 

Buddhism has no Divine Providence. ‘ Buddhists 
deny the existence of a personal God.’* They believe 
‘in no god or gods whatever as a personal motive 
power.’ Man is his own providence. He must save 
himself, All that even Buddha can do is to enlighten 
him as to the true path of knowledge. He bade his 
disciples ‘Be ye a lamp unto yourselves; be ye a refuge 
to yourselves; look not for refuge to any but your- 
selves” That was the matured philosophy of Buddha’s 
old age. 


Fichte’s idea of moral order as deity had a curious 


1 Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 210. 

2 Geden, Studies in Eastern Religions, p. 172. 
3 The Japanese Spirit, p. 97. 

* Ibid., p. 74. 


- 


76 Man’s Partnership with 


kinship with Buddha’s kharma, which represented the 
inexorable concatenation of act and result, merit and 
reward, demerit and penalty. Will, then, as the Ego in 
action, became the chief factor of life, its qualities and the 
order within which it was lived; in other words, it was 
the Providence that governed the lives of men.! 


As to the beliefs of China, Dr. Legge says that in 
the writings of its older sages Te or Shang Te appears 


as a personal being, ruling in heaven and on earth, the 
author of man’s moral nature, the governor among the 
nations, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice, 
the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the bad. 
Confucius preferred to speak of Heaven. ... Not once 
throughout the Analects (the collected Sayings of Confucius) 
does he use the personal name. I would say that he 
was unreligious rather than irreligious ; yet by the coldness 
of his temperament and intellect in this matter, his . 
influence is unfavourable to the development of true 
religious feeling among the Chinese people generally, and 
he prepared the way for the speculations of the literati of 
mediaeval and modern times, which have exposed them 
to the charge of Atheism.’ 


Confucius taught that man is master of his own 
destiny, and is the equal of heaven and earth. Heaven 
has laid down certain laws, and if man obeys these 
all the blessings which Heaven has to give are his 
right. 


* Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 123. 
* The Life and Teachings of Confucius, pp. 100-1, 


Divine Providence 7 


Heaven both governs the weather and looks after man’s 
actions, for ‘every day heaven witnesses our actions and 
is present in the places where we are’; these two aspects 
of Providence are clearly kindred, and are in fact the same. 


Prayer is offered for worldly benefits, and sacrifices 
are the means of procuring them.® 


Some few passages in the Confucian Analects and else- 
where invest. Heaven with more of the character of a personal 
god. . . . But the preponderating evidence goes to show 
that Heaven is but the equivalent of Providence, which 
orders but does not direct.’ 


In the crudest forms of religion of which we have 
any intimate knowledge God was identified with the 
elements and powers of Nature. Inanimate things 
were endowed with life and regarded as able to injure 
or help men. 


Reverence for the supreme brilliance of the sky 
(Uranus = Varuna), or for the sun in his strength, and 
the moon walking in brightness, . . . are among the oldest 
inheritances of Indo-Germanic peoples.* 


Wordsworth had such views in mind when he 


wrote— 
Great God! Id rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn. 


' Menzies, History of Religion, pp. 109-10. 

4. ITbid:, p. 113: 

> R. K. Douglas, Confucianism and Taoism, pp. 78-9. 
* Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 44. 


78 Man’s Partnership with 


As Christianity spread among our Saxon forefathers, 
Fate ceased to be regarded as the blind force which 
made even the gods bend before it. ‘God is to us 
eternal; the decrees of Wyrd change not Him.’ Wyrd 
became ‘almost synonymous with Providence, the 
power through which God works, even God Himself, 
almost the Grace of God.’ ? 

We may take one illustration of these crude beliefs 
from the religion of Peru and Mexico. Mr. Payne, 
in his History of the New World called America, says 
that the idea of the enfeeblement of the gods and 
spirits by age, of the gradual decay of their powers, 
largely underlies the theology of the New World. The 
gods were liable to death by starvation, to extinction 
by old age, which had ‘to be averted by making new 
images of them each year carefully moulded of the 
cooked paste of maize, mingled with the blood of 
sacrifices. The intention of these singular effigies was 
to warn the gods to renew their vitality ; to remind 
them of the human blood which had been shed for 
their nourishment; to urge them to the performance 
of their part in the contract or covenant between the 
gods and their worshippers.’ 

The gods of Peru are essentially mortal, and need the 
providential care of their worshippers. They belong 
to the community. ‘They are in it and of it; they are 
its most important members. They had their own 
herds of lamas and pacos, whose flesh was consumed 


1 Dale, National Life in Early English Literature, pp. 109-10. 


Divine Providence 79 


on their altars and whose wool was woven into the 
finest cloth to provide raiment for the images of the 
gods, or for the use of those who served them! Every 
calamity which befalls man is ascribed to some breach 
of his covenant with the gods. If the dues of the 
gods are withheld the defaulter is punished. ‘ His 
crops fail; his hoards decay; he is stricken with 
disease,’ ? 

The sun held a special place in the worship of both 
Peru and Mexico. The Peruvian Incas, ‘people of 
the sun,’ did not claim to be descended from the 
sun, but the name was a title of honour. In Mexico 
it was held that the sun alone stood between the earth 
and its destruction. It was regarded as an animal 
which drank up the water and sucked up solid things. 
Its appetites were thus to be satisfied by those who 
depended on it for ripening their harvests.3 

Wesley carefully availed himself when in Georgia 
of every opportunity to study the religion of the North 
American Indians. A Chicasaw chief when asked, 
‘Why do you think the Beloved Ones take care of 
you?’ answered without hesitation— 


I was in the battle with the French; and the bullet 
went on this side, and the bullet went on that side ; and 
this man died, and that man died; but I am alive 
still; and by this I know that the Beloved Ones take care 
of me.* 


* Payne, History of the New World called America, i. p. 437. 
2 Tbid., p. 442. 
* [bid., pp. 499, 522, * Works, vi. 313. 


89 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


This survey of the beliefs in Providence outside 
Bible circles reveals a universal yearning after divine 
help and favour, and bears witness to the truth which 
was grasped by nations outside the Jewish and the 
Christian pale. It signally illustrates the craving for 
fuller knowledge of the will of God concerning man 
and his life on earth. For that we must turn to the 
revelation of His love and grace in the Scriptures, We 
do not ignore or depreciate the knowledge reached by 
less favoured races. 

In the wildest aberrations of the religious consciousness 
there is yet a groping after the supreme, a craving desire to 
realize what is more and mightier than man, and to find a 
support whereon his weakness may rely.’ 


The noble thoughts of the great writers of Greece 
show ‘the working of the same spirit whose fullness is 
in Christ,’ and the religious life of Egypt and of India 
points in the same direction.? Providence is at work 
everywhere in this domain of national religions, and is 
manifestly leading men of all races towards that goal 
of which our Lord had His vision in His mediatorial 
prayer (John xvii.). 

Perverted as other religions may be in greater or less 
degree through the presence of evil which affects everything 


human, I have yeb no doubt that. they too enter into the 
ereat providential order of which Christianity forms the 


climax. 


1 Tewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 2. 
2 Tbid., p. 383. 
3 Dr, Sanday, The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 181. 


¥, 
THE GOD OF PROVIDENCE 


Scripture is the history of God.—Quoted in Wxsuuy’s Works, 
vi. 314. 

Human nature cries aloud for a living God who gives us some 
assurance of His love, a God at whose feet we may find our true self 
in a knowledge which is life and a service which is perfect freedom. 
—GwarKIn, The Knowledge of God, i. 244. 


This truth—God a moral Governor—placed in the forefront, will 
help us to grasp firmly at the outset an ethical conception of Provi- 
dence as concerned supremely, not for the happiness of sentient 
creatures, but for the reign of righteousness.—Brucp, The Providential 
Order, p. 172. 


‘What J can’t understand,’ said Dan, ‘is how Maximus knew all 
about the Picts when he was over in Gaul.’ ‘He who makes himself 
Emperor anywhere must know everything, everywhere,’ said Parnesius 
{who had been a centurion of the seventh cohort of the 30th Legion]. 
‘We had this much from Maximus’s mouth after the Games.’— 
Kipiine, Puck of Pook’s Hill, p. 196. 


O God, whose neyer-failing providence ordereth all things both 
in heayen and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us 
all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for 
us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.—Collect for the Highth Sunday 
after Trinity. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Man’s views of Providence shaped by his conception of God .* 88 
Can the scheme of Proyidence be trusted to His hands? - “ee 
The greatness of the task shown by some human analogies . woe 
The God of Providence worthy of entire confidence P| . ee, 
Immanent yet transcendent “ ° . . : : ‘ . 86 
Science corroborates this view . i ; : : » ; 5 APE 
Omnipotent yet not unconditioned . ‘ : ‘ : ‘ os oe 


Prince Hohenlohe’s thought : : . P , ; ‘ ey OR 
The wisdom of the God of Providence . ; : ; z oe tek 


A Being of perfect faithfulness and justice . 4 ; d «*) 92 
10d’s goodwill to man manifest in small things as well as great 98 
Tennyson’s trust in the God of Providence’. : : : . 4 
The God of Providence revealed in Christ ‘ ; ; - Pett: 
God’s obedience to the law of sacrifice. 7 , : : me Fy 
His minute personal care of His creatures ; ‘ ; ° ce ao 
No limit to the Divine activities . - . 98 


A God to be trusted and loved ; “ \ cs : : vO 


LITERATURE 


Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God; Mingworth, The Doctrine of the 
Trinity; Gore, The New Theology and the Old Religion; Wedgwood, The 
Moral Ideal; Martineau, A Study of Religion; Terry, Biblical Dogmatics ; 
Lidgett, The Christian Religion. 


Se 
a 


Vv 


HE doctrine of Divine Providence which any 
one holds is shaped by his conception of God. 


A study of non-Christian religions shows that 
they failed to rise above their beliefs as to their 
divinities. When the god was regarded as revengeful 
or greedy of pleasure and honour, the worshipper lost 
faith in heavenly guidance or succour. Bias of Priene 
in Ionia, the last of the seven sages of Greece, warned 
a godless crew who were praying for protection in the 
storm ‘to be silent lest the gods should discover that 
they were at sea.’ As though the gods did not already 
know where they were, or were bent on revenge, and 
could not find means to assert their honour and punish 
wickedness on shore! 

Faith in Providence, then, is the fruit of knowledge 
of God. Is He equal to the strain which the doctrine 
puts upon Him? Are the divine resources adequate 
for carrying on this world-wide, age-long scheme ? 
These are questions which demand an answer. That 
answer will not only be the measure of our faith, but 
will fix the contribution we are disposed to make 
towards accomplishing the scheme of Providence, If 

G2 


84 Man’s Partnership with 


our study leads to the settled conviction that it is 
possible to co-operate with God and to work out His 
plans, if we are convinced that this is the way to 
secure the highest and most abiding results, we shall 
have courage for every task assigned us. 

It is almost presumption to inquire into God’s 
fitness for His providential rule. But both the fortieth 
of Isaiah and the Sermon on the Mount encourage such 
investigation. That point must be clear if faith is to 
triumph in the presence of things which appear to 
make it impossible. Of some of these things we cannot 
hope to receive a complete explanation in this world. 
Many problems and enterprises of Divine Providence 
require more than a lifetime to work them out. Can 
we leave them safely in its hands ? 

That question can only be answered when we have 
reached some definite knowledge of God. We are thus 
led to study His character and His dealings with men. 


The doctrine of Providence brings into theology the 
attributes of God generally. If we give all the revealed 
divine perfections their equal homage, Providence is no 

other than the purpose of infinite love using with Almighty 
! Power the means which unfailing wisdom ordains.' 


We approach this problem in the light of experi- 
ence gained in the modest realm of human providence. 
A father’s toil for his wife and children, a mother’s 
sacrifice and watchful love, open our eyes to the love 


* Pope, Compendium of Theology, p. 191. 


“S. Sy Se 


Divine Providence 85 


of God. The Bible does not overlook those analogies. 
‘Like as a father pitieth his children,’ says the 
psalmist (ciii, 13), ‘As one whom his mother com- 
forteth,’ says the prophet (Isa. Ixvi. 13), Other 
analogies may be drawn from the wisdom and resource 
needed to conduct a business or to fill any responsible 
office. The burden that rests on the shoulders of one 
who has to wear a crown or control the destinies of 
an empire may also throw light on the tasks and 
problems which any worthy theory of Providence lays 
on God. Alfred’s enduring fame shows the gratitude 
of a nation for a wise, enlightened, and self-sacrificing 
ruler. Holland is still full of memories of the heroic 
service of William the Silent, and our own Queen 
Victoria laid her empire under an abiding debt by her 
devotion to her people. 

What conception, then, must we form of the God 
of Providence? Here is an impressive answer. 


When I speak of God, I mean a personal Being above 
us and not below us, a Being to whose greatness religion 
pointed from the first, and in whose goodness it has more 
and more in the course of ages found its final rest and 
peace.’ 


The whole body of evidence, drawn from Nature 
and from the constitution of man, leads us with 
increasing assurance to the conclusion that the God} 
of Providence is worthy of the entire confidence of. 
His creatures. PR AL NIN (TY OR 

* Gwatkin, The Knowle lge of God, i, 9. 


86 Man’s Partnership with 


Every argument which goes to verify our assumption as 
regards the bare existence of God goes equally to prove 
that He is a God of a certain character, so that each as 
it is accepted compels us to say something definite about 
Him. Thus if He is the final cause of all causes, He must 
have power to be a sufficient cause. If He is the ultimate 
origin of life and personality, He must have life and per- 
sonality Himself. If He has given us a moral sense, He 
must Himself be its concrete embodiment. An agnostic 
attitude at this point is not even decently self-consistent.’ 


The Old Testament represents God as present 
throughout His creation. ‘Do not I fill heaven and 
earth?’ saith the Lord (Jer. xxiii. 24). He is in all, 
but above all. There is no room for Pantheism here. 
Judaism, 


while emphatically asserting God’s transcendence, com- 
bines it with a sense of His spiritual nearness to mankind, 
and providential government of the world; bat it did not 
develop this into a general doctrine of divine immanence. 
That doctrine, on the other hand, was prominent in the 
Indian and Stoic philosophies ; but in a form which always 
tended to pantheism, even if it was not in all cases 
thoroughly pantheistic. * 


If God is to be the helper of man, He must be 


apart from man and above him. Our doctrine of 
Providence is emptied of significance if the divine 
existence is merged in ourown. God must be‘ personal 
and sovereign and complete in Himself,’ * 


1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 19. 
2 Wingworth, Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 200. 
’ Gore, The New Theology and the Old Religion, p. 48. 


Divine Providence 87 


Thus however much stress we lay upon God’s immanence, 
or intimate presence in the world, and inspiring guidance 
of the minds of men; this immanence gains its whole 
significance and character from the fact that it is the 
immanence of the Transcendent One, the Eternal, the 
All-Holy, the Almighty.’ 


As Lord and Ruler of the universe God guides all 
things according to His own will for the accomplish- 
ment of His gracious designs. Thomas Aquinas says— 


God is in all things, not as part of their essence, nor yet 
as an accident or attribute, but as an agent is present to 
that on which it acts. Everything must be conjoined to 
that on which it immediately acts.’ 


Science has set its seal to this doctrine which lies at 
the foundation of our belief in Divine Providence. 


If evolution points to a God at all, it points to a God 
immanent in the world, however He may also: transcend 
it—immanent as a living and formative power, and working 
as directly in the commonest of natural processes as in the 
mightiest of marvels. A God who sometimes and only 
sometimes works in it is unthinkable.’ 


The first test of God’s fitness to fill the throne of 
Providence lies in His. ability to sustain that load. 
The might needed for such a task must be absolute 
and absolutely unchanging. Is the divine power 
adequate for the vast and never-ceasing claims that 

1 Tllingworth, Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 199-200. 


2 FWisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 236. . 
3 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 80. 


88 Man’s Partnership with 


are made upon it? The answer surely is that the 
God who made the world is able to sustain and direct 
it. The fortieth chapter of Isaiah is a wonderful 
development of that argument. All fear is banished, 
all help is assured by the fact that ‘the everlast- 
ing God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
not, neither is weary’ (Isa. xl. 28). Science has added 
to the marvel by its doctrine of evolution, with its con- 
stantly unfolding miracle of wise adaptation to all the 
changing needs of Nature and of man. 

We believe, then, in a God of Providence who is 
Omnipotent, Almighty. The presence of evil in the 
world makes it necessary to guard this attribute against 
misconception. ‘The word Almighty represented an 
idea not present to the mind of antiquity. Any 
approach towards it was unwelcome,’ ! 

The Greek mind shrank from the conception of 
the Infinite, but in the Hebrew Scriptures’ the idea of 
Almighty Love is so familiar that there is no intel- 
lectual difficulty as to the problem of evil. Man’s 
_ rebellion against God explains it fully. 

The problem of evil never troubled the Greek, and 
was solved for the Jew; but in the Christian era 
thoughtful men soon began to be exercised sorely by 
it. How were they to reconcile God’s omnipotence 
with the fact that evil darkened His world? The 
theological master of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, 
says that ‘Omnipotence is the power to do whatever 

* Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal, pp. 861-2. 


Divine Providence 89 


does not involve a contradiction. But of this last it is 
more true to say that it cannot be done than that God 
cannot do it.’! 

A keen thinker maintains that half the difficulties 
which lie in the way of faith in a Personal God as the 
Ruler as well as the Creator of the world are ‘ wholly 
gratuitous.’ 


They arise out of the inconsiderate and unwarranted 
use of a single word—Omnipotent. Thoughtful minds in 
all ages have experienced the most painful perplexities 
in the attempt to reconcile certain of the moral and 
physical phenomena which we see around us with the 
assumption of a Supreme Being at once All-wise, All-good, 
and Almighty. The mental history of mankind presents 
few sadder spectacles than is afforded by the acrobatic 
efforts, the convulsive contortions, the almost incredible 
feats of subtlety and force, performed by piety and intelli- 
gence combined, in this self-imposed field of conflict—this 
torture-chamber of the soul. 


We have only to conceive the Creator 


conditioned—hampered, it may be, by the attributes, 
qualities, imperfections of the material on which He had to 
operate ; bound possibly by laws or properties inherent in 
the nature of that material, . . . and it becomes possible to 
believe in and to worship God without doing violence to our 
moral sense, or denying or distorting the sorrowful facts 
that surround our daily life.’ 


It may be urged that God has power to bar out 


1 Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 236. 
? Greg, Enigmas of Life and Character, xvi., xix. 


go Man’s Partnership with 


imperfections from His world; but this overlooks the 
fact that He has seen good to work on certain lines. 


It is vain, therefore, to appeal to the almightiness of 
God, unless you mean to throw away the relations of an 
established universe, and pass into His unconditioned 
infinitude. In the cosmos He has abnegated it; and there 
is a limit for what you may demand from it as within its 
compass.? | 


These subjects appeal strongly to devout and 
inquiring minds, We have a significant instance of 
this in a letter by Prince Hohenlohe, dated Paris, 
July 16, 1876. It is found in the midst of notices 
of interviews with Thiers and Gambetta and all the 
crowded events of an ambassador’s life. It suggests 
that in some respects God, for the purpose of training 
His creatures, deliberately limits the display of His 
own powers in order that man may exercise free will 
and work out his own plans in the world. 


I am pursued by a thought which I cannot shake off. 
It is this. May not the incredulity of our age have arisen 
from the fact that the philosophers have been as mistaken 
as the theologians in their manner of setting up the idea of 
God? The deistic philosophers do not satisfy us with their 
definition of the Godhead, because, like the theologians, 
they attribute to the Godhead properties which are opposed 
to reason. Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and so on, lead to 
nonsense. ‘The all-ruling, all-pervading unity, the divine 
as the substance of all things (according to Spinoza), is 
likewise an empty concept, the negation of the concept of 


1 Martineau, A Study of Religion, ii. 80. id 


Divine Providence gI 


God, who at any rate is one. This all-pervading unity as 
the divine substance need not be denied, but it is not the 
God of Deism, and may subsist side by side with Him. 
(The concept of the personal God should not be carried too 
far.) Why should it not be possible that just as conscious- 
ness forms itself in the human brain, so at some point of 
the universe, and in special relation with it, a consciousness 
should be formed, standing in the same relation to the said 
point of the universe as the human soul does to the body ? 
Thus we should have as God a personality limited in its 
manifestations, subordinated to the powers of Nature, but 
none the less venerable. Lindau says this brings us to the 
Jehovah of the Jews. Why not? 


The God of Providence must be endowed with 
wisdom to carry out its whole complex scheme. 
Nothing less than unerring wisdom will suffice. Modern 
invention has made us painfully familiar with the 
catastrophes which await any lapse in the brain-power 
of those who have to guide the giant forces of 
steam and electricity. Hundreds of lives are in the 
hands of a single man; if his nerve or skill fail all 
may be sacrificed. We must be assured of the divine 
wisdom if we are to reach a living faith in Providence. 
Isaiah has no hesitation here. ‘There is no searching 
of His understanding’ (xl. 28). God’s wisdom must 
be that of perfect vision. He must be aware of all 
contingencies, awake to all necessities that may arise. 
He must know His instruments and know how to use 
them. He must grasp every situation with all its 
issues. ‘That is implied in the assurance of Hanani: 


92 Man’s Partnership with 


‘The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the 
whole earth.’ 

Our study of the attributes of the God of Providence 
reaches a vital point when we inquire which side He 
is on in the fight against evil. Can He be depended 
upon as the unswerving ally of truth and goodness ? 
James Hinton speaks of the horror that once fell upon 
him when he fancied that some of the principles of the 
Bible seemed opposed to justice and truth. For a 
moment he felt all his foundations shaken. ‘But an 
unjust God! Oh, I can conceive somewhat of what the 
universe would feel if God were wicked.’! We have 
seen how that crisis came to many thinkers in Greece 


when Xenophanes turned the religion of his time into * 


ridicule. Religion received its death-blow through that 
‘collision between an immoral religious conception of 
God and a morality which is becoming conscious of its 
own strength.’* In Israel the 


claim of morality for God precluded the possibility of such 
a collision as took place in the history of the Greeks. The 
progressive development of morals in the Old Testament, 
and the gradual unfolding of a perfect character, was also 
for Israel a progressive revelation of the character of God. 
Step by step the religious idea advanced with moral pro- 
gress. And, as they advance, the contrast with other 
religions becomes more marked. * 


The God of Providence, then, must be a Being of 


1 Life, p. 31. * Lux Mundi, p. 70. 
* Thid., p. 73. 


Ne ee a ee Se a ee ee 


5s 


a, 


Divine Providence 93 


perfect fidelity and perfect justice. ‘A God of faith- 
fulness and without iniquity, just and right is He’ 
(Deut. xxxii. 4), That is the Hebrew conception. 
Matthew Arnold says— 


The real germ of religious consciousness, out of which 
sprang Israel’s name for God, to which the records of His 
history adapted themselves, and which came to be clothed 
upon, in time, with a mighty growth of poetry and tradition, 
was a consciousness of the not ourselves which makes for 
righteousness. ! 


Another question must be faced. Is God’s care for 
the world so deep and abiding as to lead Him to under- 
take the tasks involved by His providential rule, and 
to continue to fulfil them despite every hindrance that 
human sin and folly put in His way? That is perhaps 
the vital question in this study of the God of Pro- 
vidence. Many who would not dream of questioning 
the divine power or wisdom wonder whether the affairs 
of the world and the interests of individual lives in 
_ particular are not too insignificant to engage the thought 
and care of the Divine Being. 

It would be fatal to our peace if we could not give 
a satisfactory answer. ‘ God’s goodness is the measure 
of His Providence. He must have the well-being of 
every creature at heart, and be as ready to care for the 
smallest as the greatest. ‘This is the glory of the 
Scriptural teaching, that it knows nothing of a divine 


* Literature and Dogma, p. 58. 


94 Wan’s Partnership with 


general care which does not descend to the minutest 
particulars.’ ! 

The heresy which limits the divine love and care 
must be uprooted before God’s people can be comforted. 
‘Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My 
way is hid from the Lord, and my judgement is passed 
away from my God ?’ (Isa. xl. 27). 


The worst fallacy is the assumption that God cares 
only for great things. A more unscientific position could 
hardly be imagined. There is no careless work in Nature, 
A gmat is made as accurately as a man, a microscopic 
Heliopelta turned as skilfully as a watch-case. If there is 
a God at all things like these must be His doing, by 
whatever laws He does them. And if the evidence is 
overwhelming that the minute things of the earth are not 
beneath His attention, we cannot assume that the earth 
itself and man are in such sense insignificant as to make it 


likely beforehand that He is too full of other work to give ~ 


a revelation. This difficulty at all events is imaginary.’ 


A beautiful little incident of Tennyson’s last days 
shows how he rested in the care of God. His son 
says— 


A week before his death I was sitting by him, and he 
talked long of the personality and love of God, ‘ that God 
whose eyes consider the poor,’ ‘ who catereth even for the 
sparrow.’® ‘I should,’ he said, ‘infinitely rather feel myself 


t Pope, Compendium, p. 191. 

2 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 26. 

2 ¢Yet providently caters for the sparrow.—As You Like It, ii. 
3. 44. 


ee 


Divine Providence 95 


the most miserable wretch on the face of the earth with a | 
God above, than the highest type of man standing alone.’! | 


We judge the character of the God of Providence 
by the designs which He pursues and the road by 
which He reaches them. Man’s highest good must be 
combined with God’s greatest glory. We must feel 
that we are pitied and helped. ‘A God who cannot be 
touched with a feeling of our infirmities is lower than 
a dog who can.’ 2 

The Old Testament has many revelations of the 
pity and the mercy of Jehovah. But it is in Jesus 
Christ that we behold the God of Providence in His 
perfect grace and goodness, He linked Himself to our 
race, and His links to it can never be broken whilst He 
is partaker of human nature. The knowledge of man 
which the Redeemer gained by sharing human flesh, by 
submitting to human infirmities and temptations, by 
dying a human death—that is our sheet-anchor in this 
doctrine of Providence. Macaulay put it nobly— 


God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, 
attracted few worshippers. A philosopher might admire so 
noble a conception ; but the crowd turned away in disgust 
from words which presented no image to their minds. It 
was before Deity embodied in human form, walking among 
men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, 
weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, 
bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the Synagogue, 


» Tennyson’s Life, i. 311. 
* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 203. 


96 Man’s Partnership with 


and the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the 
Portico, and the fasces of the lictors, and the swords of 
thirty legions, were humbled in the dust.’ 


That was the triumph of the Incarnation, and it is 
still the way by which the doctrine of Divine Providence 
is brought most surely home to the heart of the world. 

Our Lord’s teaching on Providence is given in the 
clearest and most attractive form in the Sermon on the 
Mount. God’s relation to man is that of a Father. 
He appeals to His disciples to take the path of love 
and gentleness. ‘That ye may be the children of your 
Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to 
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and on the unjust.’ He rebukes anxious care by 
the thought: ‘ Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye 
have need of all these things’ (Matt. v. 45; vi. 32). 
He teaches us to pray, ‘Our Father, which art in 
heaven. The riches here are inexhaustible. 


- Take the simple text, ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a 
farthing ? and not one of them shall fall to the ground 
without your Father: but the very hairs of your head are 
all numbered’ (Matt. x. 29). Omniscience, Omnipresence, 
Omnipotence, the greatest natural attributes, so-called, of 
God are there; for God fulfils the obligations which He 
has imposed upon Himself as Creator by ordering the life 
of the humblest creatures which He has made. And all 
these attributes act in the service of a love which transcends 
and suffuses them all. The whole, therefore, of formal 


1 Macaulay’s Essay on Milton. 


Divine Providence 97 


\ 


theology as to the nature and attributes of God is contained 
in this testimony of Christ to His providential care.’ } 


The Christian doctrine of Providence is richer even 
than that set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. 
God’s interest in man is shown by the sacrifices He 
has made on his behalf. 

It would crown the Apology of Providence if we could 
conceive God, not merely as an onlooker, but as a partici- 


pator in the vicarious suffering by which the world is 
redeemed and regenerated.? 


‘Progress by Sacrifice’ is manifest most of all in 
that crowning grace of Providence—the Living and 
Dying of the only-begotten Son. That answers all 
questionings as to God’s interest in man and the length 
to which it will lead Him along the road of sacrifice. 
St. Paul has a mighty rebuke for all fear: ‘He that 
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us 
all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all 
things?’ (Rom. viii. 32). 

The apostle’s great word about the groaning creation 
and the Spirit who ‘maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which cannot be uttered’ (Rom, viii. 26), 
‘shows the whole suffering world of God’s creation to 
be groaning as with travail pains, and the eternal 
Spirit Himself to be in sympathetic emotions of un- 
speakable affection,’ 3 


 Lidgett, The Christian Religion, p. 108. 
* Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 369; see also pp. 371-5. 
° Dr. Terry, Biblical Dogmatics, p, 574. 


H 


98 Man’s Partnership with 


Here is a fellowship in sorrow and in intercession 
which is sure proof that we are not left alone. 

As we study God’s relation to His world thus set 
forth in the Old Testament and the New, the assurance 
of His providential care becomes invincible. The links 
which bind the world to Him are too close and tender 
to leave room for doubt as to His infinite and never- 
failing love for His children. 

The vision of the God of Providence is the frontis- 
piece to the Book which recounts the never-ending 
story of His faithfulness, His love, His power, His 
wisdom. 


His minute personal care extends to every sparrow and 
to the cattle on a thousand hills ; how much more must He 
care for man who exists in His own image! For the most 
ignorant and degraded savage is of more value than all 
birds and cattle, and no nation or tribe of men has been 
left without the witness of His fatherly concern. Moreover; 
each individual receives ag minute attention as if there were 
no other in the world... . For each and for all of these alike 
the everlasting Father cares with unspeakable tenderness, 
and makes all things work together for their good. He is 
at once the abiding and faithful Sustainer, Preserver, and 
Ruler. Our heavenly Father is in love with all His world, 
not willing that any should perish.’ 


_God’s activities are subject to none of those limita- 
tions to which human service must submit. There 
is no question here of a single lifetime. John Wesley 
never penned a nobler or more inspiring sentence than 


1 Dr. Terry, Biblical Dogmatics, p. 574. 


Divine Providence 99 


that written to Mrs. Pendarves, on August 12, List, 
long before his evangelical conversion, ‘But I know 
no danger that a lover of God can be in, till God is no 
more, or at least has quitted the reins, and left chance 
to govern the world.’ 

Divine Providence is an abiding and unfolding 
revelation of God. It supplements the knowledge 
drawn from reason and revelation; it also unfolds it 
and applies it, This evidence increases in volume as 
our life advances ; itis continually enriched by the new 
proofs we find in surveying the history of the Church 
and the world. Deism is no longer a living faith, 


The centre of religious interest has moved. Those who 
seck God seek for witnesses of Him in the bountiful earth 
and the broad sky, and in the widening marvel of human 
history. Many believe that all that is, and has been, and is 
yet to come is not too vast to reveal Him. To manifest 
Himself He requires not only the single human life, but 
every life in all the vast context of its antecedents and 
consequences.} 


The conclusion may be expressed in the words of 
two modern thinkers. 


The only God whom Western Kuropeans, with a 
Christian ancestry of a thousand years behind them, can 
worship, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; or rather, 
of St. Paul, St. Augustine, and St. Bernard, and of the in- 
numerable ‘ blessed saints,’ canonized or not, who peopled 
the ages of faith. 

‘ «Divine Immanence,’ Prof, Henry Jones, Hibbert Journal, July, 
1907, p. 748, 

* Morison, Service of Man, p. 48. 


100 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


That is the God of grace and providence in whom 
our fathers trusted. The last witness shows that the 
revelation of the Trinity is the sheet-anchor of a 
reasonable and all-sustaining faith in Providence. 


What we need is something that will assure us of God’s 
love, so that we may no longer be fretted by the facts that 
seem to deny it. It is Christianity alone that gives us this 
assurance. Its doctrine of the Trinity secures the possi- 
bility of ethical relations in God’s own being. If it teaches 
that God’s moral nature is love, it shows how this can be, 
since the circle of the Godhead includes the lover and the 
loved.’ 


1 Peake, The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament, p. 147. 


VI 
THE MAN OF PROVIDENCE 


My Lord, it is both your honour and interest to be SAws rot 
kpeittovos, the entire and devoted servant of Providence.—FLAVEL’s 
Dedication, 

Many such simple enthusiasts have been the instruments of 
Providence.—Sir WAuTER Scort. 


From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
This universal frame began: 
From harmony to harmony 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in Man. 
DryveEN, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day. 


Man is neither the master nor the slave of Nature; he is its 
interpreter and living word. Man consummates the universe, and 
gives a voice to the mute creation —EpGar QUINET. 


Were I elect like you, 
I would encircle me with love, and raise 
A rampart of my fellows; it should seem 
Impossible for me to fail, so watched 
By gentle friends who made their cause my own. 
They should ward off fate’s envy ;—the great gift, 
Extravagant when claimed by me alone, 
Being so a gift to them ag well as me. 

Browning, Paracelsus, ii. p. 30 (ed. 1888). 


CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Man’s part in the plans of Divine Providence . ‘ : " . 103 
Celsus denied that all things were made for man , , ° - 104 


Science confirms the Scripture view . ‘ ‘ : . . . 105 
Dr. Ray Lankester on the Kingdom of Man . ; : , - 106 
The Dean of Westminster's Summary : : : ‘ : . 106 
Man’s brain fits him to control Nature. ¥ ‘ ‘ ; - 108 
Is man a free agent ? < ; « ~ 109 
Difficulty of reconciling human eae ahd avin dovuteiniee E10 
Self-determinism . : ‘ « 410 
Man responsible for his sits ay the God of Hiniienen : : AS 
Personal contributions to the work . : : : ‘: : 4 hie 
Dangers of abuse A . ‘ E ‘ P . ‘ H » 114 
Providential opportunities... , i SN TP 
Queen Victoria’s sense of a erovidahtinl yioabien : A . fee 
Providential men ; . ‘ . ‘ ‘ ; A aT fy / 
Lord Acton on memorable Hives ‘ . ° A 4 mee § 1: 
Faith grows as we watch God's chosen Far eieanta: ‘ ’ - 419 
England’s great men ‘ : . : : ; J -« 120 
The law of sacrifice in men of Providence . ‘ ad Oath eset 


The humbler instruments. of Providence . : , t + tue 
Man trained for his part . : > . , : ; ;: «eee 
Need of imagination and sympathy . ° A ° , : - 124 
A glorious field for the man of Providence . : : A - 124 
Theodoret’s closing words . A . ° : é . : » 120 


LITERATURE 


Ray Lankester, The Kingdom of Man; Dr. Newton Clarke, An Outline 
of Christian Theology ; Hegel, Philosophy of History; M. C. Albright, The 
Common Heritage; Bruce, The Providential Order. 


VI 


|: human agent plays a large part in the 


working out of God’s providential design, 

and that part is constantly growing more 
important. Man is the chief instrument for accom- 
plishing the purposes of Divine Providence. In him 
the Bible story of Creation culminates. The world 
is made ready for its human master, who takes his 
place as lord at the express command of God. Huis 
title-deeds are put into his! hands by his Maker. 
‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, 
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 
and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every 
living thing that moveth upon the earth’ (Gen. i. 28). 
The noble psalm which describes with such force and 
beauty man’s place in the universe meditates upon 
these things with surprise and gratitude. The sight 
of man as God’s under-Providence, the human ad- 
ministrator ruling the kingdom entrusted to him, is 
overwhelming. 

When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, 
The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; 


What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? 
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him? 


104. WMan’s Partnership with 


For Thou hast made him but little lower than God, 


And crownest him with glory and honour, 
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; 


Thou hast put all things under his feet: 

All sheep and oxen, 

Yea, and the beasts of the field, 

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, 

Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas (Ps. viii, 3-8). 

The position thus assigned to man in the universe 
has not been undisputed. In the second century 
Celsus, in his attack on the faith and morals of 
Christians, blames them ‘for asserting that God made 
all things for the sake of man. Because from the 
history of animals, and from the sagacity manifested 
by them, he would show that all things come into 
existence not more for the sake of man than of the 
irrational animals,’ 

Origen answers that ‘God provides in a special 
manner for rational creatures; while this also follows, 
that irrational creatures enjoy the benefit of what is 
done for man.’ Haeckel agrees with Celsus. He 
holds that 


the antiquated fable of the wise scheme whereby the 
Creator’s hand ordered all things in wisdom and under- 
standing is completely refuted. Human vanity and human 
pride, since the awakening of human consciousness, 
have got into the way of regarding Man as the peculiar 
object and end of all life on earth, as the central 
point of earth’s being, for whose use and service all the 
other activities of Nature have from the beginning been 
determined or predestinated by a wise Providence.’ 
1 Anthropogeny, p. 88. 


Divine Providence 105 


But Science is against the sceptic. If it ‘has firmly 
linked our body to the beasts that perish, anti-Christian 
thought itself at times has donned the prophet’s mantle, 
discoursing of our true affinity and likeness to the 
mysterious force which works behind the veil of Isis 
which no mortal has lifted yet.’ } 

The scientific revelations of the last century have 
shown with increasing force and confidence that man 
crowns the whole process of creation and evolution. 
Darwin writes to Dr. Asa Gray: ‘If anything is 
designed, certainly man must be; one’s “inner con- 
sciousness ” (though a false guide) tells one so.’ Man 
is in truth the greatest of all miracles. Macaulay 
justly describes him as ‘the machine of machines, the 
machine compared with which all the contrivances of 
the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless.’ ® 

The great historian is corroborated by the theo- 
logian. Dr. Illingworth says— 


We have grown so familiar with our own human nature, 
that we are apt to think we know more about it than we 
really do. Hence men often take it for granted that to 
explain religion as a human invention or to prove the life 
of Christ to be merely human, is to abolish its mystery 
and translate it into a language that we fully understand ; 
whereas in fact the life of man, with its unknown origin 
and unknown destiny, its high capacities and tragic failures, 
its infinite aspirations and infinitesimal achievements, its 


1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 7. 
* Life and Letters, i1. 382. 
$ Speech on the Ten Hours’ Bill. 


106 Man’s Partnership with 


strange intermixture of grandeur and meanness, of sanctity 
and sin, is the greatest mystery within our experience. 
Grande profundum est homo, and to say that a thing is 
human is to say that it is mysterious. 


Man’s powers of body and mind fit him not only 
to seek his own health and life but to rule over the 
lower creatures. The world, excellently planned and 
adapted in every part, is entrusted largely to the rule 
of human providence. Man’s place in the cosmos is 
clear. Dr, Ray Lankester says— 


It has become more and more a matter of conviction to 
me—and I believe that I share that conviction with a large 
body of fellow students both in this country and other 
civilized states—that the time has arrived when the true 
relation of Nature to Man has been so clearly ascertained 
that it should be more generally known than is at present 
the case, and that this knowledge should form far more 
largely than it does at this moment the object of human 
activity and endeavour—that it should be, in fact, the 
cuide of state government, the trusted basis of the de- 
velopment of human communities.’ 


Man, then, is the centre of the universe, the visible 
head of creation, in vital touch with all its processes. 
His dignity rests on his relation to Nature.2 The Dean 
of Westminster put this forcibly in a sermon preached 
before the London University. 

' [llingworth, The Trinity, p. 19. 


* The Kingdom of Man, p. 1. 
5 See Lidgett, The Christian Religion, pp. 85, 273. 


Divine Providence 107 


That Man—perfectly realized humanity—should be thus 
central to the scheme of our universe, the ultimate issue, 
the final cause of its evolution, is a conception which in 
various shapes has always offered itself to thinkers who in 
any age have asked for the meaning of things as a whole. 
The Greek dictum, dvOpwros pérpov wavtwv, ‘Man is the 
measure of all,’ the Hebrew inspiration, ‘In the image of 
God made He man,’ with the promise, ‘ Let them have 
dominion,’ alike prepare the way for the Christian faith — 
of the Incarnation crowned by the Resurrection and the 
Ascension, placing the Son of Man for ever on the right 
hand of God. It is the conviction of thoughtful Christians 
that every new access of knowledge which analyses and 
reveals the method of the universal process, in such regions 
as biology, psychology, history, contributes its quota of 
justification to the belief that, so far as the present system 
of the universe extends—and beyond it we are not qualified 
to range—the perfecting of man in Christ is the purpose 
of God with His world. And this it is which, under the 
symbolism of the Ascension, is offered to us as our hope.’ 


Professor Ray Lankester thus sums up the process 
of evolution— 


The consensus is complete. Man is held to be a part 
of Nature, a product of the definite and orderly evolution 
which is universal ; a being resulting from and driven by 
the one great nexus of mechanism which we call Nature. 
He stands alone, face to face with that relentless mechanism. 
It is his duty to understand and to control it.’ 


Some thinkers who accept this conclusion ‘seek 


to belittle man.’ Others do not fail to recognize 


1 Guardian, May 15, 1907. 
2 The Kingdom of Man, p. 7. 


108 Man’s Partnership with 


that ‘Man stands apart from and above all natural 
products, whether animate or inanimate.’! Compared 
with other animals man’s brain is enormous in size, 
and has a corresponding increase in its activities and 
capacity. 


It appears that the increased bulk of cerebral substance 
means increased ‘educability’—an increased power of 
storing up individual experience—which tends to take the 
place of the inherited mechanism with which it is often in 
antagonism. ‘The power of profiting by individual experi- 
ence, in fact educability, must in conditions of close compe- 
tition be, when other conditions are equal, an immense 
advantage to its possessor.” 


His mental qualities ‘justify the view that Man 
forms a new departure in the gradual unfolding of 
Nature’s predestined scheme. Knowledge, reason, self- 
consciousness, will, are the attributes of Man’? That 
view is essential to Dr. Ray Lankester’s argument 
that ‘the knowledge and control of Nature is Man’s 
destiny and his greatest need.’ He urges that to 
neglect to prepare future leaders of the community 
for this réle is ‘to retard the approach of well-being 
and happiness, and to injure humanity.’> Other 
masters of Science have shared this estimate of man. 
After referring to the theory that ‘all the planets wiil 
in time grow too cold for life, unless indeed some 

' The Kingdom of Man, p. 7. 


2 Thid., p. 23. 3 Ibid.; p. 25. 
* Ibid., p. 60. > Ibid., p. 60. 


ee eS ee ee ee er 


ee Fa 


a - 
SE re eee me 


— 


| 
| 


Divine Providence 109 


great body dashes into the sun and thus gives it fresh 
life,’ Darwin says— 


Believing, as I do, that man in the distant future will 
be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an 
intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings 
are doomed to complete annihilation after such long- 
continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the 
immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our 
world will not appear so dreadful.’ 


The psalmist’s teaching is thus sustained by science. 
Man’s vocation is to be a human copy and mirror of 
the Divine Providence. For that end he was made. 
He holds his place to work out God’s plan for the 
whole creation. 

One question must be faced. Is man a free agent 
of Providence, or is he the servant of inevitable law ? 
Is he master of his actions or only the slave of his 
nature and circumstances? The question has been 
debated for ages. Fatalism has held sway over many 
lands and many religions. But it leaves no place 
for free will, whilst to moral action and rational action 
such free will is indispensable. Consciousness affirms 
that free will exists, and conscience would have no 
significance if it did not. ‘Take it away, and man 
is a mere machine. Every man knows that he 
decides his own action, and would not be a man if 
he did not.’ ? 


1 Life and Letters, i. 312. 
2 Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 213, 


110 Man’s Partnership with 


The reconciliation of man’s part with that of God is 
not always easy. 


As a matter of history, the sovereignty of God and the 
freedom of man have not gone well together. One of the 
two ideas tends to exclude the other. Hither God absorbs 
man in Pantheism, or man banishes God in Deism. Hither 
man is wholly subject to some universal law, or he stands 
out in the godless isolation of that which is right in his — 
own eyes. There is no escape from the dilemma, unless 
God and man are joined by some true affinity which 
destroys their mutual exclusiveness. Such an affinity is 
found by the philosophical doctrine that there is a spark of 
the divine in man; and it might have been worth while to 
ask whether the Christian doctrine of an incarnation does 
not put the philosophical in its strongest form, and if so, 
whether this may not be a presumption in its favour.’? 


Philosophy and religion bear testimony, as Pro- 
fessor Gwatkin puts it, ‘to the almost insuperable 
difficulty of finding room in the universe for God and 
man.’ Yet a true doctrine of Providence knows 
nothing of such conflict. Divine power does not over- 
ride its human instruments. Man’s free will is not 
destroyed, but he is guided and instructed that he 
may become an intelligent and convinced ally of God. 

Free will does not, of course, involve ‘a motiveless 
nor a limitless will, ? but implies freedom to choose 
between various courses of action. The meaning is 
more exactly expressed by the term ‘self-determinism,’ 


' Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 240-1. 
2 Illingworth, Divine Immanence, p. 192. 


Divine Providence ion 


which takes due account of the motives which sway 
human action. 


The nature of the material objects and laws by which 
human life is environed, the society of men whose presence 
and influence is only revealed to us through the senses, 
present to us the particular realities which, by forming the 
world of consciousness, condition the tasks and problems of 
the will.’ 


A clever Oxford tutor once said, ‘ Viewed from the 
outside one is forced to conclude that man is subject 
to Necessity, but viewed from the inside one is forced 
to believe that he has Free Will.’ 2 

Dr. Newton Clarke puts it thus— 


God has the power, to us mysterious, of guiding free 
beings from above their freedom, without interfering with 
it. ‘The freedom of man is accompanied by a_ higher 
sovereignty of God over spirits. We know ourselves free, 
and yet find evidence of a plan in our life that is not our 
own. We may seek to explain it by assuming that God 


predestines our acts, binds our wills, and makes us mere ~ 


instruments; but we need not. He is greater than we 
think, and the solution of the mystery of Providence is to 
be found in His greatness. Above the field of human 
freedom He exercises a sovereignty in which there is no © 
constraint. 

Evidence of this higher sovereignty meets us when- 
ever we find our lives falling into line, and working out 
a purpose that we did not form or entertain. It appears 


' Lidgett, The Christian Religion, p. 423, where there is a helpful 
discussion of the whole subject. 

? Richard Robinson, Queen’s College, Oxford, quoted in Wright's 
Life of Walter Pater, i. 241. 


112 Man’s Partnership with 


also in all working out of large and high ideas in human 
history. The ‘power not ourselves that makes for 
righteousness’ is no dream, but a glorious reality. Some- 
thing is going forward in individual life, and in the 
movement of mankind at large, that men did not devise— 
something so truly in the nature of purpose as to be surely 
the work of mind; something that accords in character 
with the character of God ; something that expresses and 
represents His higher Sovereignty. Men are not forced to 
work out this idea which is not their own ; both individually 
and collectively they are as free in all their doing as if 
they fulfilled no meanings but their own. God rules them 
from above their freedom. 

How far this higher sway of God extends we cannot 
at present know. Mystery remains in life, and we cannot 
fully interpret Providence till we view it from above this 
world. All Providence requires long time for its vindica- 
tion, most of all this higher Providence. . . . Perhaps 
faith will ultimately see that God’s guiding of men from 
above their freedom is perfect and universal, and that His 
limiting of Himself by creating free wills, though real, has 
not deprived Him of anything of the control to which 
His perfect goodness is entitled. But a faith so high, if 
it ig ever to be attained, waits for greater light than the 
Christian world has yet perceived.? 


The man of Providence, then, must recognize him- 
self as a free agent of the God of Providence. His 
gifts and capacities are a trust. The Parable of the 
Talents is laden with meaning for us here. ‘ With all 
sublunary entities,’ Carlyle says, ‘this is the question 
of questions: What talent is born to you? How do 


1 An Outline of Christian Theology, pp. 150-1. 


Divine Providence 113 


you employ that?’ Every talent is a bond to the 
heavenly Giver. The most scathing condemnation 
ever pronounced on a faithless servant of Divine 
Providence is that ‘his great gifts were enhanced by 
great talents of which God gave him the use and the 
devil the application.’ 

It is not necessary that a man have brilliant gifts 
or supreme opportunities. One talent well used is as 
sure a passport to the favour of the gracious Master 
as two or five. No ambition is more cherished by 
those who have this deep sense of responsibility 
than that they may fill their part as worthily as 
possible. Prince Hohenlohe wrote to his brother the 
Cardinal, after he had resigned his position as Premier 
of Bavaria in 1870— 

In my breviary I have placed a passage cut from your 
letter, which [ read every day. You say, ‘Life in any case 
is nothing but a fight, and it is consoling to be able to say 
at the end of one’s days, “I have fought a good fight.” ’ 


I rejoice at your noble words every time I read them. 
Adieu.' 


Every man is an ally of Divine Providence in 
working for his own highest good. ‘God’s Providence,’ 
said Beecher, ‘is on the side of clear heads.’ One who 
has taken stock of his gifts and opportunities will see 
in what ways Providence expects him to cultivate 
his powers, and will labour to make the best of the 
stuff. He will also try to understand what personal 


1 Memoirs, ii, 3. 


114 Man’s Partnership with 


contribution he is expected to make to the good of 
the world. Charles Wesley’s gift was poetry, and he 
cultivated it even on his death-bed. John Wesley did 
not hesitate to advise Hannah More: ‘Live in the 
world; that is your sphere of action.’ He knew how 
that pure-hearted woman was influencing the upper 
classes, and he was anxious that she should not neglect 
her vocation. So did the Countess of Huntingdon 
fulfil her mission to the aristocratic circles of her day. 
This sense of a providential call is not free from 
dangers. Philip the Second of Spain misread his 
vocation. He sent to Bishop Granvelle in 1560 the 
names and descriptions of those who were to be victims 
of the Inquisition in the Netherlands, and told him— 


There are but few of us left in the world who care for 
religion. Tis necessary, therefore, for us to take the 
ereater heed for Christianity. We must lose our all, if 
need be, in order to do our duty ; for in fine it is right that 


a man should do his duty.’ 


The human Providence must be fashioned on the 
lines of the divine. That is the safeguard against 
misuse of its powers. Its eye must be fixed on the 
Predominant Partner, consulting His will, copying His 
methods so far as they are models for man to copy. 
Above all, the man of Providence must be ready to 


obey orders. God holds the general plan. He fits — 


each stone into the great Temple of Providence. Each 


i Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, Part II. ch. ii. 


— a eS 


a Da, atin cn, a a 


a See ee ee a oe 


0 ee i ite ot 


Divine Providence IIS 


life has an appointed place and service which it must 
be prepared to accept. Continual prayer for guidance 
befits those who would worthily fulfil their providential 
vocation, The man of Providence must also be quick 
to discern opportunities, and to use them to the best 
advantage. That was Nelson’s chief claim to honour. 
‘I cannot be in the field of glory and be kept out of 
sight.’ If every ally of Providence could truthfully _ 
say that he had never lost a chance of doing good and | 
helping on God’s cause, all things would wear a 
different aspect. 

There are providential moments which we miss at 
our peril. The opportunity to make a contribution to 
the solution of some hard problem may only present 
ibeelf once, and if ib is lost BALy lives may be poorer, 
eet his memorable decision for Christ. He said in 
1786: ‘God has set before me two great objects, the 
suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of 
manners. How nobly he rose to his vocation all 
the world bears witness. He was not blind also to 
the fact that, in the hands of Providence, his removal 
from the Methodist influences of his boyhood at Wim- 
bledon was the means of his being connected with 
politicians and becoming useful in public life, Earl 
Shaftesbury is another outstanding example of the 
providential man seizing the providential moment with 
abiding results for the degraded and downtrodden. 

The Editors of Queen Victoria’s Letters point out 


116 WVian’s Partnership with 


that the result of the parliamentary and municipal 
reforms of William IV’s reign had been to give the 
middle classes a share in the government of the country, 


and it was supremely fortunate that the Queen, by a provi- 
dential gift of temperament, thoroughly understood the 
middle-class point of view. The two qualities of British 
middle-class life are common sense and family affection ; 
and on these particular virtues the Queen’s character was 
based; so that by a happy intuition she was able to 
interpret and express the spirit and temper of that class 
which, throughout her reign, was destined to hold the 
balance of political power in its hands. Behind lay a deep 
sense of religion, the religion which centres in the belief 
in the Fatherhood of God, and is impatient of dogmatic 
distinctions and subtleties.’ 


That is the verdict on a finished life. The path 
which led to such honour is revealed in the girl-queen’s 
resolve— 

Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this 
station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my 
country. I am very young, and perhaps in many, though 
not in all things, inexperienced ; but I am sure that very 
few have more real good-will and more real desire to do 
what is fit and right than I have.’ 


Hero-worship has sometimes almost-been exalted into 
a religion, Yet no one can deny the existence of those 
who tower above their fellows in genius, in eloquence, 
in commanding influence and power. They are often 


1 The Letters of Queen Victoria, i. p. 97. 
2 Queen Victoria’s Journal, June 20, 1837. 


Divine Providence 117 


delightfully unconscious of their claim to distinction. 
Mr. Gladstone said— 


Iam by no means sure that Providence has endowed me 
with anything that can be called a striking gift. But if 
there be such a thing entrusted to me, it has been shown at 
certain political junctures in what may be termed an appre- 
ciation of the general situation and its results. 


God needs His providential men, and He can always 
find them. Their mission is to stamp great thoughts 
on the minds of their fellows, or to carry through enter- 
prises which are beyond the strength of ordinary 
workers. History makes us familiar with a succession 
of such men. They saw their task, and linked them- 
selves to those resources of heaven and of earth by 
which it could be accomplished. The vision of duty 
never faded from their eyes, and they bent all their 
strength and energy to its realization. That is what 
Lord Rosebery meant when he described Oliver Crom- 
well as 


a practical mystic—the most formidable and terrible of all 
combinations. The man who combines inspiration derived— 
and, in my judgement really derived—from close communion 
with the supernatural and the celestial; the man who has 
that inspiration and adds to it the energy of a mighty man 
of action,—such a man as that lives in communion with a 
Sinai of his own, and he appears to come down to the 
world below armed with no less than the terrors and decrees 
of the Almighty Himself.? 


' Speech at Unveiling of Cromwell’s Statue, November 15, 1899. 


118 Man’s Partnership with 


That order of practical mystics embraces mighty 
names. Moses, St. Paul, Luther, Wesley, all belong to it; 
and the world lies under a growing debt to them for what 
they accomplished as signal instruments of Providence, 
The more we study such lives the stronger our confidence 
becomes both in Divine and human Providence. 


We cannot afford wantonly to lose sight of great men 
and memorable lives, and are bound to store up objects for 
admiration as far as may be; for the effect of implacable 
research is constantly to reduce their number. No intel- 
lectual exercise, for instance, can be more invigorating than 
to watch the working of the mind of Napoleon, the most 
entirely known as well as the ablest of historic men. In 
another sphere, it is the vision of a higher world to be 
intimate with Fénelon, the cherished model of politicians, 
ecclesiastics, and men of letters, the witness against one 
century and precursor of another, the advocate of the poor 
against oppression, of liberty in an age of arbitrary power, 
of tolerance in an age of persecution, of the humane virtues 
among men accustomed to sacrifice them to authority, the 
man of whom one enemy says that his cleverness was 
enough to strike terror, and another, that genius poured 
in torrents from his eyes. For the minds that are greatest 
and best alone furnish the instructive examples. A man of 
ordinary proportion or inferior metal knows not how to 
think out the rounded circle of his thought, how to divest 
his will of its surroundings and to rise above the pressure 
of time and race and circumstance, to choose the star 
that guides his course, to correct, and test, and assay his 
convictions by the light within, and, with a resolute con- 
science and ideal courage, to remodel and reconstitute the 
character which birth and education gave him. 

1 Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History, pp. 5-6. 


Divine Providence mae) 


Faith in Divine Providence gains new strength as 
we watch its chosen instruments brought forth. It still 
astonishes us to find Saul of Tarsus leading the early 
Church into broader views and wider fields of useful- 
ness. The very man who had been a stumbling-block to 
those who followed the paths of Providenceis transformed 
into a foremost champion of the new faith, Chrysos- 
tom’s master regretted that the Christians had stolen 
one who might have been the foremost champion of 
pagan philosophy in Antioch. Ambrose, trained as a 
Roman governor, is seized on by the people of Milan 
as their bishop, and becomes the providential man of 
Northern Italy. Luther came from a monastery to 
reform the Church of Rome. Wesley was drawn from 
his college quiet to become the evangelist of England. 
Such lives increase our confidence in the overruling 
Providence that selects its human instruments with 
such infinite wisdom. 


Great thoughts—and surely the unity and the holiness 
of God are great thoughts—call for great men to declare 
them. They are not impressed on common mortals by cold 
reasoning and dry-as-dust antiquarianism, but only by the 
enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of men who live by truth, and 
count all other things as loss if they may gain truth. Great 
men are not merely the straws that show us which way 
the current flows; they are more like the winds of heaven 
striving on the deep, and often beating dead against the 
current. And as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so is 
the coming of a great man. It is chance in the sense of 
being due to obscure causes; but no theist can allow that 


120 Man’s Partnership with 


it is chance in the sense of coming to pass apart from the 
ordered guidance he is bound to find in history. 


Our National Portrait Gallery gives an impressive 
view of what Providence has done for England in 
dowering it with great men. The gifts of the ruler, 
the statesman, the judge, the poet, the historian, the 
painter, the man of science, the soldier and the sailor, 
the discoverer, the inventor—all are represented there. 
What repeated gifts of Providence to our nation are 
these! Other lands have their own rolls of providential 
men. The country is poor indeed that has no such 
gallery, even though it may not have taken visible 
shape and form. Nor does the nation grudge these 
great men their influence and honour. It rather adds to 
them. They are its servants, the workers on whom it 
leans. A providential man like Lord Lister may use 
his gifts as surgeon and scientist to relieve the suffering 
of the world and prolong a multitude of precious lives. 
The terrible destitution of a London street arab made 
Dr. Barnardo change his intention of becoming a 
missionary to China in order to devote himself to the 
rescue of destitute children at home. When he took 
Lord Shaftesbury’s guests in cabs to the neighbourhood 
of Billingsgate, where they found seventy-three waifs, 
old and young, sleeping under tarpaulins, they also 
recognized the providential call which the young doctor 
had heard and resolved to obey.2 Dr. Stephenson 


’ Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 18. 
* Memoirs of Dr. Barnardo, pp. 77-86. 


ee 


Divine Providence 121 


was led by the same Providence to his great field of 
usefulness, 

The law of sacrifice for others must rule every 
providential life, but it must be mightiest in the mighty. 
The Church has its divine example here. Our. Lord 
trod that road. ‘The Son of Man came not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life 
a ransom for many’ (Mark x. 45). That is the pattern 
life. The ideal of the ancient world exalted the great 
man above law, and recognized him as lord over his 
fellows. Jesus broke that idol. ‘It is not so among 
you: but whosoever would become great among you, 
shall be your minister: and whosoever would be first 
among you, shall be servant of all’ (Mark x. 43-4), 

St. Paul is a conspicuous example of a vase of elec- 
tion. He lives for Christ. To make Him known to 
others, to win their love and loyalty for his Master, 
that is Paul’s vocation, to fulfil which he sacrifices all 
things in an ecstasy of devotion. The man of Pro- 
vidence who is called to some great task must be 
ready to take that road. Look at the providential 
men of the mission-field. What sacrifices they have 
made, what dangers they have faced, what loneliness 
and misunderstanding they have borne! It has always 
been thus with the chosen instruments of Providence. 


If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World- 
Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be agents of 
the World-Spirit—we shall find it to have been no happy 
one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life 


122 Man’s Partnership with 


was labour and trouble; their whole nature was nought 
else but their master-passion. When their object is attained 
they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die 
early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar ; 
transported to St. Helena, like Napoleon.' 


Providence cannot accomplish its purposes by great 
men alone. It needs its multitude of humbler yet not 
less beneficial instruments. Each man is intended to 
be an agent of Providence in his own sphere. The effort 
of a lowly worker may appear absolutely insignificant 
in itself, yet it is a vital part of the vast providential 
whole. Every home is a minor realm in the empire 
of Divine Providence. It has its own crowned king 
and queen. Thomas Carlyle describes Teufelsdréckh 
as a boy watching his foster-parents at church. ‘The 
highest I knew on earth I here saw bowed down, with 
awe unspeakable, before a Higher in heaven.’ ‘There 
are spheres in which all can be allies of Providence, 
and some of the most fruitful and happy work is done 
in lowly places where humble lives are consecrated to 
love and duty. To recognize this vocation and lend 
oneself to it gives new zest to life. It is redeemed from 
narrowness, for it is part of a universal plan over which 
Heaven presides ; it has a touch of divine dignity which 
comes from its partnership with God Himself. Man's 
freedom entitles him to bring his joyful sacrifice as 
a willing offering to the service of God and God’s 
world. 


nS 


1 Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 3: 


Divine Providence 123 


The world has never lacked such workers. Even in 
the darkest time there has been a consecrated band. 


There were reformers before the Reformation—poor men 
of Lyons and the like, who wrought no great immediate 
deliverance, yet without whose prelusive efforts even 
Luther’s mighty energy might have been exerted in vain. 
It needs only that a few be a little in advance of their 
time, dissatisfied with things as they are, sighing for a 
springtide of new life, communicating their aspirations and 
propagating their discontent here and there, as social 
relations and duties give them opportunity. Such is the 
obscure though not ignoble part assigned to the many: to 
keep themselves as far as may be unspotted from an evil 
world, and to pray that existing evil may one day be 
mended." 

Man is trained for his part as a minister and in- 
strument of Divine Providence in an imperfect world. 
He is capable of education; and this world, with its 
burdens and problems, gives wonderful opportunities 
for cultivating all his powers, His own nature is 
his school. : 

There is for man an inestimable moral value in the very 
conditions of his existence in a material body and a material 
world. His subjection to material wants, his limitations 
in time and space, and the natural ties of kinship and 
obligation, are part and parcel of a providential discipline 
adapted to cultivate the ethical nature.* 

We may contrast the man of Providence as he is and 
as he ought to be; as he enters God’s school and as he 


1 Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 339. 
® Dy, Terry, Biblical Dogmatics, p. 573. 


124 Man’s Partnership with 


leaves it. He must be a scholarand a servant, quick to 
learn, sympathetic, enterprising, vigilant, unwearying. 
Out of such stuff Divine Providence can shape noble 
instruments, and the more perfectly these conditions are 
met the more effectually God can use His servants. 

Men sometimes spoil their work as instruments of 
Divine Providence by lack of sympathy and even of 
imagination. The more a man loses himself by being 
- absorbed in the plans of Divine Providence, the more 
does he find himself enriched on every side of his nature 
and his existence. There is a significant passage in 
Mr. Henderson’s Life of Sir George Grey, the great 
proconsul. 


Grey had all the glowing enthusiasm of a strenuous 
idealist, and the unsatisfied yearning of a man whose reach 
never exceeds his grasp; he too regarded himself as an 
instrument of divine will, and felt his littleness in the 
presence of that mighty Power which ruled the stars; but 
he never reached those sublime heights of spiritual being 
in which considerations of self are lost in an all-absorbing 
desire to serve the infinite. 


The man of Providence has a glorious field for the 
exercise of his powers. He is akin to all around him. 
This ‘means that he is the elder brother in the great 
family of the creation, that by birth he is initiated, 
so to speak, into a relation of mutual love and help- 
fulness with his surroundings, a relationship and a 
privilege he can accept and develop if he will’? The 


1M. C. Albright, The Common Heritage, p. 117. 


—_ a oe 


Divine Providence 125 


terror which man had of his surroundings in early ages 
is thus removed. He is no longer a slave to the blind 
forces of Nature. That bondage is broken through. 
The power that was once deemed to be immovable and 
indifferent has been found ‘ready to become a willing 
agent and a helpmeet to man in his larger aims.’ His 
environment is providential, and reveals its power to 
further his schemes in a way that men never dreamt 
who had not dug riches out of the earth or used the 
ocean as a highway by which the wealth of the world 
might be distributed among the nations. The capacity 
for helpfulness which is waiting to be developed 
promises many a future surprise such as steam and 
electricity have furnished. 


Man has been apt to speak of ‘The Laws of Nature,’ and 
to school himself to bow before them. He does well indeed 
to reverence them, and to set aside all thought of diverting 
their forces to suit his selfish purposes. He is capable of 
entering into conscious fellowship with the world in which 
he finds himself and uniting himself with what he believes 
to be the great purpose of the whole. 


The wise man, like Socrates, will be learning to the 
last day of his life. The time comes, however, when 
he is ready for his discharge. He needs relief and rest. 
Others are ready to fill his place, and are more in touch 
with the times. The man of Providence has many 
happy hours, but one of the happiest is that when he 
hears his Master’s ‘ Well done. 


SND Net WEI INTMA AS 


1M, C. Albright, The Common Heritage, p. 122. 


| 


126 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


The world gains by these promotions to higher 
service, painful though they are to those who must step 
into the breach which Providence continually makes in 
the ranks of its noblest and most devoted servants. 


It becomes apparent that the generations of man must 
not linger too long if progress is to be maintained. Man 
must come and go in quick succession if the river of humanity 
is to flow on in ever increasing fullness of spiritual vitality." 


The close of Theodoret’s Orations on Providence 
sums up the whole duty of man— 


Knowing these things therefore, and having thoroughly 
learned the providence of God which [reaches] through all 
things, and discerning that philanthropy of God which can- 
not be tracked out by human minds, and seeing His boundless 
pity, cease to strive against the Creator, learn to hymn the 
Benefactor, render grateful thanks for the benefits. Sacrifice 
to God, the sacrifice of thanksgiving ; do not pollute your 
tongue with blasphemy, but make it an organ of that praise 
for which it was made. Adore the divine works which are 
visible ; do not, indeed, inquire too curiously into the 
hidden things, but expect the knowledge of them in the 
future. When we lay aside our sufferings then we shall 
receive perfect knowledge. Do not imitate Adam, who 
ventured to pluck the forbidden fruits; do not lay hands on 
the hidden things, but leave the knowledge of these to its 
own time. Obey the wise man who writes: ‘ Do not say, 
What is this? Wherefore is that? For He hath made all 
things for their uses’ (Ecclus. xxxix. 21). Everywhere, 
therefore, gather occasions for hymns, and making thence 
one hymnody, offer it with yourself to the Creator, giver of 
good things, and the Saviour Christ, our true God. To 
Him be glory, and adoration, and greatness to endless ages. 


Amen. 
1 Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 122. 


VII 


NATURE AS A BOOK OF 
PROVIDENCE 


Let us begin, then, by asking whether all this which they call the 
universe is left to the guidance of an irrational and random chance, 
or, on the contrary, as our fathers declared, is ordered and governed 
by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom.— Pato. 


The infinite and eternal Power that is manifested in every pulsa- 
tion of the universe is none other than the living God.—Prorgsgor 
Fiske, Idea of God, cf. vy. § and pp. 105-10. 


Nature ‘looks most like an immensely long chapter of accidents, 
and is really, if true, a chapter of special providences of Him without 
whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and whose greatness, wisdom, 
and perpetual care I never understood as I have since I became a 
convert to Darwin’s views. —CuARLES Kinesiry, Life, ii. 154, ch. xx. 


And Nature, the Old Nurse, took 
The child upon her knee, 
Saying: ‘ Here is a story-book 
Thy Father has written for thee,’ 


“Come wander with me,’ she said, 
‘Into regions yet untrod; 
And read what is still unread 
In the manuscripts of God.’ 
LoneraeiLow, The Fiftieth Birthday of Aguasiz. 


Lord, according to Thy words, 
I have considered Thy birds; 
And [I find their life good 
And better the better understood. 
GEORGE MacDonaLy, Consider the Ravens. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
The word ‘Nature’ much abused . : : é : ‘ . 129 
Darwin’s view . BIL aay ‘ ; ; : ; , oe 
Nature a book of Divine Bravidenes 5 < . : ; Ae! 
The argument from design : P . ‘ . . : » (OEE 
The wonder and mystery abide . : . . . : . 133 
Theodoret’s view of Nature supplemented by modern science . 134 
Hooker and Hume . ‘ . : ‘ . 136 
Nature designed to promote health aed Huprinthe of man . ere ey) 
Adaptation of creatures to their environment . : : “ . 138 
Tennyson’s feeling about Nature. , : ° . ° . 140 
Impressive vastness of the field : : ° : ° ° . 140 
The struggle for existence 5 : ; : : : : « ak 


Mill’s arraignment of Nature . : : ; : ; eet es 
Dr. Wallace takes a brighter view . ; x 4 : . . 144 
Earthquakes and volcanoes : : : ; ‘ : F . 145 
Disasters overruled . : : P : : 4 ‘ i . 146 
Dante and Strabo : ‘ : : ‘ : ' , ; <emae 
Nature full of providential riches . 4 ; . : Odie hee 


LITERATURE 


Darwin, Life and Letters; Lankester, The Kingdom of Man; Gerard, 
The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer; J. 8. Mill, Three Essays on 
Religion; Mlingworth, ‘The Problem of Pain’ in Lum Mundi; Sir J. F. W. 
Herschel, Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects; Fiske, Through Nature 
to God. 


Vil 


ATURE is a term that is much abused. It is 

N narrowed down to signify animals and plants, 

or personified to represent the ruler of the 

universe. The latter use empties the idea of ‘God’ of 

its most distinctive concept, which is perhaps most 

simply described by the word ‘Providence.’ He who 

guides the movement of the cosmos cannot Himself be 
identified with the cosmos.! 

Dr. Ray Lankester may help us to a definition. 

By the professed student of modern sciences [Nature] 
is usually understood as a name for the entire mechanism 
of the universe, the cosmos in all its parts; and it is in 
this sense that I use it.? 


To Jesus Christ Nature was a book of Divine Provi- 
dence. The great passage of the Sermon on the Mount 
(Matt. vi. 25-30) represents the heavenly Father feeding 
the birds and clothing the grass of the field. Our Lord 
thus inspires the ‘Christian belief in a universe which 
is everywhere alive, not with life of its own, but through 
the immanence of a living God.’ ® 


* Guardian, March 11, 1907, p. 594. 
? The Kingdom of Man, p. 2. 
* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i, 20. 


130 Man’s Partnership with 


St. Paul lays emphasis on the thought that for all 
men Nature is a mighty revelation of God. ‘ For the 
invisible things of Him since the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that 
are made, even His everlasting power and divinity ; that 
they may be without excuse ’ (Rom. i. 20). 

The greatest student of Nature in the nineteenth 
century sets his seal to St. Paul's statement. When the 
grandeur of a Brazilian forest burst upon Darwin, he 
wrote in his Journal: ‘It is not possible to give an 
adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admira- 
tion, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind.’ 

As he quoted this sentence in later years, he added : 
‘J well remember my conviction that there is more in 
man than the breath of his body.! But Darwin saw — 
that he had stronger evidence than these feelings of 
wonder. 


Another source of conviction in the existence of God, 
connected with the reason, and not with the feelings, 
impresses me as having much more weight. This follows 
from the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility, of con- 
ceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including 
man with his capacity for looking far backwards and far 
into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. 
When thus reflecting, I am compelled to look to a First 
Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous 
to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. .. . 
But then arises the doubt, Can the mind of man, which has, 
as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as 


1 Life and Letters, i. 311. 


Divine Providence 131 


that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it 
draws such grand conclusions ? } 


Man’s mind, we hold, may be trusted to deal with 
evidence. His faculties are given him for that very 
purpose ; and as he brings them to bear on the wonders 
of Nature, he discovers everywhere the hand of God 
sustaining and renewing the earth. If that is not 
granted all else fails us. ‘There is no room for Cod 
unless Nature itself in all its parts and all its details is 
the expression of a divine purpose limited by neither 
space nor time.’ 2 

Nature, then, is a book of Divine Providence. There 
is revealed in it a wisdom which is beyond our thought, 
a power which more and more astonishes us as we 
attempt to fathom it. God is working everywhere. 


His omnipresence as a doctrine of religion simply means 
that His action is not hindered by distance like ours, but 
is as direct in any one place as in any other; and Hig 
immanence means, further, that the common works of 
Nature are as truly divine acts as anything we can imagine 
done by a miracle. 


Darwin thought that the law of natural selection 
undermined the old argument from design in Nature. 
‘We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful 
hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an 
intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.’ He 

1 Life and Letters, i. 312-3; see also p, 306. 


* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 278. 
* Tbid., it, 277. 


132 Man’s Partnership with 


tells a correspondent, however, ‘You have expressed 
my inward conviction, though far more vividly and 
clearly than I could have done, that the universe is not 
the result of chance.’? 

The Duke of Argyll once talked to Darwin about his 
studies on Fertilization of Orchids, and on Harthworms, 
with the wonderful contrivances of Nature revealed in 
such realms. The Duke thought it was impossible to 
look at these without seeing that they were the effect 
and the expression of mind. He never forgot what 
Mr. Darwin said in reply. 


He looked at me very hard and said, ‘ Well, that often 
comes over me with overwhelming force; but at other 
times,’ and he shook his head vaguely, adding, ‘it seems to 
20 away.” 


Darwin wrote to Asa Gray— 


I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I 
should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on 
all sides of us. ‘There seems to me too much misery in the 
world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and 
omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneu- 
monidae with the express intention of their feeding within 


the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play — 


with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the 

belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other 

hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful 

universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude 

that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined 
1 Life and Letters, i. 316. 


2 Good Words, April, 1885, p. 244; Darwin’s Life and Letters, 
i. 316. 


Divine Providence ge 


to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with 
the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out 
of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all 
Satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is 
too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well 
speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each hope and 
believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my 
Views are not at all necessarily atheistical. 


In a company where Darwin’s name was mentioned, 
Strauss exclaimed triumphantly, ‘Darwin !—the man 
who drove the miraculous out of the universe!’ ‘But 
did he?’ (added the Archbishop of Armagh, in speaking 
of a lady who had lost faith). ‘Did he drive out any- 
thing but a shallow interpretation of the miraculous ? 
Did she understand what Jesus said to the Jews? “ My 
Father worketh even until now, and I work,” the 
miracle of continual creation.’ 

This is well put by Professor Gwatkin. 

In the light of science we see now that the world is not 
& machine made once for all by some great engineer’s hand 
from outside, but an organism slowly developed by a power 
working from within.? 

Sir William Flower, Director of the Natural History 
Museum, the trusted friend of Darwin and the leading 
scientific workers of his time, clearly pointed out, in an 
address to the Church Congress in 1883, that if Darwin’s 
view is accepted ‘the wonder and mystery of creation 
remain as wonderful and mysterious as before,’ 


1 Life and Letters, ii, 312; see also pp. 354, 377. 
* The Knowledge of God, i. 39. 


134 Man’s Partnership with 


If the succession of small miracles formerly supposed to 
regulate the operations of Nature no longer satisfies us, 
have we not substituted for them one of immeasurable 
greatness and grandeur ?* 


Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus in the fifth century, 
wrote ten orations concerning Providence. The first 
demonstrates it from the sky, the sun, the moon, and the 
rest of the stars; the second from air, land, sea, rivers, 
and fountains; the third from the human frame; the 
fourth from human hands and the arts; the fifth from 
the imperium committed to man over the brute. Five 
of the ten orations are thus based on Nature. Science 
in the fifth century was still in its cradle. There was 
no telescope, no microscope, no real knowledge of the 
human frame. Geology, chemistry, medicine were all 
practically unborn; yet to the eyes of this Christian 
thinker Nature was one vast book of Providence. The 
last century has revolutionized the methods for the 
study of Nature, and allowed us to penetrate into a 
thousand secrets of which former ages scarcely dreamed. 
Psalmist and prophet had their vision. ‘The heavens 
declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth 
His handywork’ (Ps. xix. 1); ‘ Lift up your eyes on high, 
and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their 
host by number: He calleth them all by name; by the 
greatness of His might,and for that He is strong in power, 
not one is lacking’ (Isa. xl. 26). But astronomy has 
enabled us to grasp the law stamped on stars and suns 

1 Sir William Henry Flower, pp. 97-9. 


Divine Providence 135 


and planets, and to trace there the hand of Divine 
Providence in a way that fills us with never-ceasing’ 
wonder. 

Our debt to Science is manifold, and it 1s always 
growing. Its real theme is the world as a book of 
Providence. There has been many a conflict of views 
between the scientist and the theologian, and scientific 
workers have not seldom put forth unreasonable claims 
to authority; yet how much richer scientific research 
has made us in knowledge of the world and ourselves! 
Every living creature is seen to have its place and pur- 
pose. The balance maintained by Nature between living 
things is a growing revelation of the Providence that 
rules over all realms of life. Man has sometimes paid 
dearly when he has thoughtlessly disturbed this 
wonderful adjustment and interaction. 

This age hag seen the conviction that Nature bears 
upon it the stamp of God grow deeper and more intel- 
ligent. Christian men of science like Faraday, the 
Herschels, Sir David Brewster, Romanes, Lord Kelvin, 
have been powerful champions of this truth. To trace 
divine wisdom and skill through the various realms of 
Nature is to become familiar with amazing forethought, 
beneficence, and wealth of resources, and to find how 
marvellously all work in harmony. Science cannot 
solve the problems of ‘the origin and nature of matter 
and force, the source of motion, of life, of sensation and 
consciousness, of rational intelligence and language, of 
Free-will, of the reign of law and order to which all 


136 Man’s Partnership with 


Nature testifies.’! God is the explanation of Nature. 
‘She is the wondrous product of His Almighty will; 
and for us, of all created things, she is the grandest and 
most admirable.’? | 


For we see the whole world and each part thereof so 
compacted, that as long as each thing performeth only that 
work which is natural unto it, it thereby preserveth both 
other things, and also itself. Contrariwise let any principal 
thing, as the sun, the moon, any one of the heavens or 
elements, but once cease or fail, or swerve; and who doth 
not easily conceive, that the sequel thereof would be ruin 
both to itself, and whatsoever dependeth on it.’ 


Hume argues that, allowing ‘the gods to be the 
authors of the existence or order of the universe, it 
follows, that they possess that precise degree of power, 
intelligence, and benevolence, which appears in their 
workmanship. . . . As the universe shows wisdom 
and goodness, we infer wisdom and goodness. As it 
shows a particular degree of these perfections, we infer 
a particular degree of them, precisely adapted to the 
effect which we examine.’ 4 

That makes us sure of our ground in this study of 
Nature as a book of Providence. We have certain 
things before us on which we can build up a reliable 
doctrine as to God’s rule over the world. 

* Gerard, The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer, ch. xviii. 

? Lamarck, Systeme Analytique, p. 40. 

* Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, i. 9. 


* An Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, section xi., ‘On a 
Particular Providence and of a Future State,’ §§ 106, 113. 


a 


Divine Providence 137 


The way in which Nature is designed to preserve 
life and to promote health and happiness, grows more 
marvellous as we study it. Not least wonderful is the 
structure of the earth, with its atmosphere, its varying 
climates, its seas and rivers. The floor of stone on 
which we live is covered with a carpet of soil in which 
every manner of food can be produced for man and 
beast. Here is the rich laboratory where cold and heat, 
winter and summer, work to supply daily bread for the 
world. arth, air, water—each yields its harvest to 
satisty the wants of every living thing. 

The food stores of the earth are a continual revela- 
tion of the wisdom and the power of God. The very 
range at which corn and cotton grow bears witness to 
the Providence that is over Nature. Wheat seems to 
be as old as man; it is certainly more ancient than 
civilization, or than any known language. Here is an 
open book full of the marvels of divine care. ‘The 
providence of God as preservation and co-operation is 
exercised over the vast system of things as one immense 
but not unbounded organic unity.’ ! 

The world’s Magna Charta is that ancient promise : 
‘While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and 
cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and 
night shall not cease’ (Gen. viii. 22). The continued 
existence of man proves that the promise has never 
been broken. 

Look at one force among the servants of Nature. 

* Pope, Compendium of Theology, p. 195. 


138 Man’s Partnership with 


Water is far the most important of all the terrestrial 
agents by which the surface of the earth is geologically 
modified. In Nature’s ceaseless system of circulation 
‘there is not a drop of water that is not busy with its 
allotted task of changing the face of the earth.’ The 
rain works its way over or through the earth and be- 
comes loaded with material drawn from rock and soil. 
‘Day by day the process is advancing. So far as we 
can tell, it has never ceased since the first shower of 
rain fell upon the earth”? This removal and renewal 
of soil is specially seen in heavy rainstorms in India, 
which sweep an almost incredible amount of soil and 
earth into the sea.? 

Richard Jefferies exults in the riches of Provi- 
dence. 


Nature flings treasures abroad, puffs them with open 
lips along every breeze, piles up lavish layers of them in the 
free open air, packs countless numbers together in the 
needles of a fir-tree. Prodigality and superfluity are 
stamped on everything she does. The ear of wheat returns 
a hundred-fold the grain from which it grew. The surface 
of the earth offers to us far more than we consume. The 
ervains, the seeds, the fruits, the animals, the abounding 
products are beyond the power of all the human race to 
devour. They can, too, be multiplied a thousand-fold. 
There is no natural lack. 


The adaptation of creatures to their environment 
furnishes striking disclosures of the Providence that 


1 Geikie, Text-Book of Geology, p. 448. 
? Thid., p. 461. 


Divine Providence 139 


watches over Nature. The young sparrow has not a 
particle of down upon its body when it breaks the 
shell, the young snipe emerges large and strong with a 
thick downy coat. One is to be sheltered in a covered 
nest, the other runs about from its birth. The young 
lapwing has a white collar round its neck which makes 
its little body appear to be two separate things. ‘This 
helps them to escape the notice of their enemies, and 
furnishes us with a beautiful instance of the way in 
which Nature takes care of her helpless children.’ The 
ptarmigan’s summer dress is a coat of feathers of vary- 
ing shades of brown and grey, so cunningly mixed that 
it is difficult to detect the female brooding on her nest, 
even when you are looking at her sitting at your feet, 
amongst grey lichen-clad stones, stunted brown heather, 
and moss of various tints. In winter the bird has to 
live amongst the snow, and its feathers change from 
freckled grey to pure white, so that it is hidden from 
its enemies! Instinct is the ally of Providence, and 
the bird seems to change its ground to suit its changed 
colour.? 

We discern the same Providence at work in every 
realm of Nature. Inthe heavens above us it is brought 
out more clearly by every addition to the power of our 
telescopes, whilst the microscope has no less marvellous 
stories to tell of the world that is hidden from the 
unaided human eye. All our study of Nature bears 


1 Kearton, The Fairyland of Living Things, pp. 27-8, 40-2. 
2‘Tbid.,'p. 42. 


140 Man’s Partnership with 


out the Bible teaching that God’s providence extends 
to every living thing. All creatures wait on God that 
He may give them their food in due season (Ps. civ. 27) ; 
from Him the lions seek their meat (Ps. civ. 21); the 
ravens cry unto Him (Job xxxviii.41), All depend for 
life and being on His providence. 

Lord Tennyson once picked up a daisy as he walked 
with his son, and looking at its crimson-tipped leaves, 
said, ‘ Does not this look like a thinking Artificer, one 
who wishes to ornament ?’! His feeling about Nature 
is impressively described. 


Everywhere throughout the universe he saw the glory 
and greatness of God, and the science of Nature was 
particularly dear to him. Every new fact which came 
within his range was carefully weighed. As he exulted in 
the wilder aspects of Nature and revelled in the thunder- 
storm, so he felt a joy in her orderliness ; he feit a rest in 
her steadfastness, patient progress, and hopefulness; the 
same seasons ever returned; the same stars wheeled in 
their courses; the flowers and trees blossomed and the 
birds sang yearly in their appointed months; and he had a 
triumphant appreciation of her ever-new revelations of 
beauty.” 


Fresh wonders are daily being discovered in the book 
of Nature which give growing evidence of providential 
adaptation and arrangement. A wide survey of Nature 
is sometimes, however, almost overwhelming. 

We are used to the tame and domestic animals, but 
when ‘suddenly brought into the full assemblage of those 

1 Life, i. 313. 2 Thid., i. 312. 


Divine Providence 141 


mysterious beings with which it has pleased Almighty 
wisdom to people the earth, a sort of dizziness comes over’ 
us and we fall ‘into a kind of scepticism.’ Nature seems to 
be too powerful and various, or at least too strange, to be 
the work of God, according to that Image which our 
imbecility has set up within us for the Infinite and Eternal, 
and as we have framed to ourselves our contracted notions 
of His attributes and His acts; and if we do not submit 
ourselves in awe to His great mysteriousness, and chasten 
our hearts and keep silence, we shall be in danger of losing 
our belief in His presence and providence altogether.! 


Certain problems raised by Nature as a book of 
Providence are not easy of explanation. It is the scene 
of a never-ending struggle for existence, a struggle 
which seems to be attended with such suffering and 
even torture that our hearts bleed as we contemplate 
it. A formidable indictment against Divine Providence 
has been framed on this supposed imperfection and 
cruelty of Nature. Lucretius, who denounced the very 
idea of Providence, argued from the great faultiness of 
the universe that it was not framed by the gods.2 John 
Stuart Mill pressed this home relentlessly. He holds 
that ‘all praise of civilization, or art, or contrivance, 
is so much dispraise of Nature; an admission of 

* Newman, Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and Ecclesiastical, 
rit * Quod si jam rerum ignorem primordia quae sint, 
Hoc tamen ex ipsis caeli rationibus ausim 
Confirmare aliisque ex rebus reddere multis, 
Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam 


Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa. 
De rerum Natura, V. vv. 195-9, 


142 Man’s Partnership with 


imperfection, which it is man’s business, and merit, 


to be always endeavouring to correct or mitigate.’ ! 
Nature’s methods cannot be imitated by man. 


Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human 
laws, Nature does once to every being that lives ; and in a 
large proportion of cases after protracted tortures such as 
only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely 
inflicted on their living fellow creatures. If, by an arbitrary 
reservation, we refuse to account anything murder but 
what abridges a certain term supposed to be allotted to 
human life, Nature also does this to all but a small 
percentage of lives, and does it in all the modes, violent 
or insidious, in which the worst human beings take the 
lives of one another. Nature impales men, breaks them as 
if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, 
burns them to death, crushes them with stones like the 
first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes 
them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom 
of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous 
deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis 
or a Domitian never surpassed. All this Nature does 
with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of 
justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest 
indifferently with the meanest and the worst; upon those 
who are engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, 
and often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts ; and 
it might almost be imagined as a punishment for them.’ 


Mill pushes his indictment further, and arraigns the 
Providence which permits hurricane and earthquake, 


1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 21. 
* Thid., pp. 28-9. 


Divine Providence 143 


Next to taking life (equal to it according to a high 
authority) is taking the means by which we live; and 
Nature does this too on the largest scale and with the most 
callous indifference. A single hurricane destroys the hopes 
of a season ; a flight of locusts, or an inundation, desolates a 
district ; a trifling chemical change in an edible root starves 
a million of people. The waves of the sea, like banditti, 
seize and appropriate the wealth of the rich and the little 
all of the poor with the same accompaniments of stripping, 
wounding, and killing as their human antitypes. Everything 
in short, which the worst men commit either against life or 
property is perpetrated on a larger scale by natural agents.? 


He brushes aside any suggestion that the evil in the 
world exists to prevent greater evils, This, he holds, 
can have no application to an omnipotent Creator. ‘If 
the Maker of the world can all that He will, He wills 
misery, and there is no escape from the conclusion,’ 2 
Mill leans to a Manichaean explanation of suffering as 
the work of an evil power, but says, ‘If we are not to 
believe the animal creation to be the work of a demon, 
it is because we need not suppose it to have been made 
by a Being of infinite power.’ ® 

He would sacrifice the attribute of omnipotence to 
preserve that of beneficence. According to his view the 
divine wisdom is perfect, the goodness infinite, but 
the power ‘limited by some inexplicable viciousness in 
the original constitution of things which it must require 
a long succession of ages to overcome.’ ! 

* Three Hssays on Religion, p. 30. 


? [bid., p. 37. 3 Ibid., p. 58. 
* Fiske, Through Nature to God, p. 17. 


144 Man’s Partnership with 


Mill adds that the man who resists an impulse to 
sin, or helps in the slightest degree to make the world 
better than he found it, ‘may actually be regarded as a 
participator in the creative work of God; and thus each 
act of human life acquires a solemn significance that is 
almost overwhelming to contemplate.’ * 

Mill’s dark view of Nature, so the most competent 
judges hold, is a grievous error. The philosopher's 
anguish at the suffering of the animal world does him 
honour, but he does not look at things with the trained 
eye of a naturalist. Alfred Russel Wallace, a far 
more capable witness than he, claims a hearing. 
Darwin counted much on his help, and told him, 
‘You are the man to apply to in a difficulty’? Dr. 
Wallace is not afraid to maintain that animals “in 
Nature ‘have an almost perpetual enjoyment in their 
lives’ His conclusion is that, ‘given the necessity of 
death and reproduction—and without them there could 
have been no progressive development of the animal 
world—it is difficult even to imagine a system by which 
a greater balance of happiness could have been secured.’ 

There is little doubt that this is the true view. 
Mill overlooked the brighter side of Nature, and 
exaggerated the pain and suffering till it became a 
nightmare. Professor Mivart says— 

Though, of course, animals feel, they do not know that 
they feel, nor reflect upon the sufferings they have had or 


1 Fiske, Through Nature to God, pp. 17-8. 
2 My Life, ii. p. 4. 


—- =~ 


Divine Providence 145 


will have to endure. If a wasp, while enjoying a meal of 
honey, has its slender waist suddenly snipped through and 
its whole abdomen cut away, it does not allow such a trifle 
for @ moment to interrupt its pleasurable repast, but it 
continues to rapidly devour the savoury food, which escapes 
as rapidly from its mutilated thorax.) 


We have all felt Tennyson’s horror of ‘ Nature red 
in tooth and claw,’ yet we must not allow such a feeling 
to distort our view. 


The universality of pain throughout the range of the 
animal world, reaching back into the distant ages of 
geology, and involved in the very structure of the animal 
organism, is without doubt among the most serious problems 
which the Theist has to face. But it is a problem in dealing 
with which emotion is very often mistaken for logic. 
J. 8. Mill’s famous indictment of Nature, for example, is 
one of the most emotional pieces of rhetoric of which a 
professed logician was ever guilty.’ 


As to the physical catastrophes of which Mill 
speaks, Sir John Herschel may be called as witness. 


In the study of these vast and awful phenomena we are 
brought in contact with those immense and rude powers of 
nature which seem to convey to the imagination the impress 
of brute force and lawless violence ; but itis not so... . In 
their wildest paroxysms the rage of the volcano and the 
earthquake is subject to great and immutable laws : they feel 
the bridle and obey it. . .. There is mighty and rough work 
to be accomplished, and it cannot be done by gentle means.* 

Lessons from Nature, p. 369. 


* Dr. Mllingworth, ‘The Problem of Pain,’ in Lux Mundi, p. 138. 
* Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects, p. 19. 


L 


146 Man’s Partnership with 
He asks whether earthquakes and volcanoes may not 


form part and parcel of some great scheme of providential 
arrangement which is at work for good and not for 
ill. . . . The volcano and the earthquake, dreadful as 
they are, as local and temporary visitations, are in fact 
unavoidable (I had almost said necessary) incidents in a 
vast system of action to which we owe the very ground 
we stand upon, the very land we inhabit, without which 
neither man, beast, nor bird would have a place for their 
existence, and the world would be the habitation of nothing 
but fishes.’ 


By such means Providence makes a profound im- 
pression. In many cases the very disasters themselves 
are turned to account. The effort required to avert 
them or to repair the havoc they have wrought, is a 
stimulus to ingenuity and enterprise. Sometimes what 
would have been called a national calamity has been 
used by Providence to introduce a new era. The 
history of medicine and surgery is the response of 
human providence to sickness and suffering. 


The awful Black Death, which had seemed so relentless 
and cruel in its attacks, turned out in the end to have been 
one of the chief means of changing the old order of land- 
owning and tilling for an easier system, and of making men 
in their own interests do tardy but needful justice to their 
fellows.” 


These problems present a sharp test for faith and 
patience ; yet after allowing them due weight, we reach 


1 Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects, pp. 2-3. 
2 York Powell, History of England, i. 88. 


i 


Divine Providence 147 


the conclusion that Nature reveals a providential care 
and goodness which is in harmony with the other 
realms where we can watch its operations. It is easy 
to find fault with some of its arrangements. Critics 
have taken ‘a grim pleasure in pointing out flaws in 
the constitution of things,’ 


Among modern writers the most conspictious instance 
of this temper is afforded by that much too positive philo- 
sopher Auguste Comte, who would fain have tipped the 
earth’s axis at a different angle and altered the arrange- 
ments of Nature in many ways. He was like Alphonso, 
the learned king of Castile, who regretted that he had not 
been present when the world was created—he could have 
given such excellent advice ! ? 


Dante’s ‘Vision of Paradise’ closes with that 
glorious unfolding of God’s works and ways— 
I look’d 
While sight was unconsumed; and in that depth, 
Saw in one volume clasp’d of love, whate’er 
The universe unfolds; all properties 
Of substance and of accident, beheld 


Compounded, yet one individual light 
The whole.” 


Strabo was not satisfied with the Nile. 


If you dispute Providence and Destiny you can find 
many things in human affairs and nature that you would 
suppose might be much better performed in this or that 
way; as, for instance, that Egypt should have plenty of 
rain of its own without being irrigated from the land of 
Ethiopia.? 

1 Fiske, Through Nature to God, p. 99. 


* Paradiso, Canto xxxiii,; Cary’s translation, 85, 
> Book iv. ¢, 1, 


143 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


Lord Cromer’s comment on this passage shows how 
the old geographer misunderstood Providence. ‘In no 
other country in the world has agriculture been made 
so independent of the vicissitudes of the seasons.’ 
Nature seems to have granted man the most favourable 
conditions, and when modern engineering began to 
direct the forces of the Nile the crops of cotton and 
sugar were more than trebled. The resources thus 
set within the reach of human providence are almost 
inexhaustible. 

An experience is forced upon the mind of the thoughtful 
naturalist, that, penetrate into Nature wherever he may, 
thought has been there before him; that, to quote the 
words of one of the most distinguished naturalists, ‘ there 
is really a plan, a thoughtful plan, a plan which may be 


read in the relations which you, and I, and all living beings 
scattered over the surface of the earth, hold to one another. 


There are some mysteries which perplex us, there 
is suffering which we cannot altogether explain; but 
those features are met in every other realm through 
which we trace Divine Providence, and we wait in 
confidence for God’s own explanation of the suffering, 
which we can already recognize as a means for the 
perfecting of the world. Meanwhile Nature repeats to 
us the lesson it taught the psalmist— 


O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! 
In wisdom hast Thou made them all: 
The earth is full of Thy riches (Ps. civ. 24). 


1 Modern Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 456-60. 
2 Shairp, Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, pp. 367-8. 


ee ee a eo ee 


ee 


VIII 


PROVIDENCE IN THE LIFE OF 
NATIONS 


Je regarde done l’étude de Vhistoire comme étude de la 
Providence.—L’histoire est vraiment une seconde philosophie.—Si 
Dieu ne parle pas tourjours, il agit tourjours en Dieu.—D’ AUGUESSEAD, 
Ocuvres, xv. 34, 31, 35. 


We cannot go wrong, says Clement of Alexandria, if we refer all 
good things to Providence, whether they be Christian or heathen.— 
GwatTxIn, The Knowledge of God, ii. 95. 


Historiae ipsius praeter delectationem utilitas nulla est, quam ut 
religionis Christianae veritas demonstretur, quod aliter quam per 
historiam fieri non potest.—Lxisnrrz, Opera, ed. Dutens, vi. 297. 


The more a man is versed in business the more he finds the hand 
of Providence everywhere. All is Providence, whose favour is to 
be merited by virtue.— William Pitt (after Quebec was taken). 
W. D. GREEN, William Pitt, p. 154. 


The subject of Modern History is of all others, to my mind, the 
most interesting, inasmuch as it includes all questions of the deepest 
interest relating not to human things only, but to divine.—ARNOLD, 
Modern History, p. 311. 


CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Bible view of Providence in the life of nations . f oi” ae 
Growing recognition in our own time. : . , : - 151 
Hegel’s protest against a peddling view . : . « 162 


Raleigh’s History of the World as a study of Bedvidsiies . . 154 
Lord Acton and Bishop Creighton on the sigue of history . 157 


Providence in Jewish history . ; ; P © ¥ law 
Testimony of the Cuneiform Thseripeious, : . , . - 162 
The vocation of Greece . ; ¢ - : . . . Pas 
Rome as an instrument of Providence . . . e » 165 


Contribution of Israel, Greece, and Rome to the ae plan . 166 
The Teutonic genius needed . . : . . . ‘ « 167 


Rome as a schoolmistress for the nations ‘ . ‘ . sane 
The Northern nations work out their own destiny . ° Peek ig 
Providence in the Renaissance and the Discovery of America . 171 
Small nations as instruments of Providence . . . . PED 


Providential gifts of the Northern races : ‘ é ; . 173 
The United States and Canada ‘ - ° ‘ ‘ ; eke 


The training of the lower races ° ‘ 175 
Nations as instruments for the spiritual davel oomnent of maskin 177 
Lord Acton on Providenoe in History . - : : Bh if: 


The plan of Providence as seen in the life of nations 0) is Oe eae ee 
Dr. Arnold’s view . . : : : : : . : - 180 
The march of progress . . : . . . . ° - 183 
George Steward on Providence in National Life . . stg: an 


LITERATURE 


Hegel, Philosophy of History; Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God; 
Acton, Lectures on Modern History; Creighton, Life and Letters; York 
Powell’s Life; Raleigh, History of the World; Lux Mundi, ‘ Preparation 
in History for Christ’; Alston, The White Man's Work in Asia and Africa ; 
Bruce, J'he Providential Order; Pearson, National Life and Character ; 
Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature; Adam, The Religious 
Teachers of Greece; Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty; W. T. Arnold, Zhe 
Roman System of Provincial Administration; Figgis, From Gerson to 
Grotius; Kidd, Social Evolution and Principles of Western Civilization ; 
Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, 


a OR ee ee ae ee ee 


Vill 


HE Old Testament view of Providence is largely 
limited to the history of Israel, though there are 
passages which take a wider sweep, and bear wit- 
ness toa noble universality as well as a lofty patriotism. 
The promise to Abraham, ‘In thee shall all the families 
of the earth be blessed’ (Gen. xii. 3), indicates that 
Providence has designs for the future blessing of the 
whole world. In the Sermon on the Mount the divine 
care extends to all men as children of the heavenly 
Father, and the great commission to the Apostles 
embraces all nations in its scope as possible disciples 
of the one Master. 

St. Paul’s outlook also is world-wide. He opened 
his heart before a worthy audience in Athens. Men 
were linked to God by bonds forged through their 
daily needs, All nations were of one blood, and Provi- 
dence had appointed the bounds of their habitation 
that all alike might be linked to the common source 
of life and blessing. This is a noble unfolding of the 
Providence that shapes the destiny of nations. 

The growing recognition of Divine Providence in 
national history is one of the glories of our time. It 


152 Man’s Partnership with 


knits the races of men into a vast brotherhood, of which 
every member is dear to the common Father. It is 
interesting to watch the growth of this conception in the 
last hundred and fifty years. 


Lessing took a backward step when he rejected history 
as a source for the knowledge of God; yet he also gave to 
the world the fruitful thought that history is the divine 
education of the human race, though he somehow missed 
the inference that the method of education ought to show 
something of the Teacher’s character. And if he seemed 
(perhaps he did not mean) to teach that one religion is as 
good as another, even this helped to pull down Christianity 
from the pedestal on which men had perversely set it, as 
the one true revelation in a God-forsaken world of false 
religions.’ 

Professor W. R. Smith refers to ‘that large and 
thoughtful school of theologians’ which ‘refuses to 
believe that God’s dealings with Israel in the times 
before Christ can be distinguished under the special 
name of Revelation from His providential guidance of 
other nations.’ For our part, though we do make the 
distinction, it does not blind us to the divine care which 
has guided the destiny of other races. 

History, then, is a spacious book of Providence re- 
cording how the deeds of men and. nations have helped 
or hindered the purposes of God. Hegel was one of the 
most acute exponents and champions of this view. He 
had been struck with the way in which Christian 
thinkers expressed admiration for the wisdom of God 

1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 258. 


age ep ee 


a 


; 
; 
| 
: 
. 


Divine Providence 153 


as displayed in animals, plants, and isolated occurrences. 
He naturally asked, if Providence was busy in this 
narrowet sphere, why not in the greater? ‘We must 
not imagine God to be too weak to exercise His wisdom 
on the grand scale. For his part he recognized a 
plan of Providence by which the passions of men 
were controlled on the stage of history. He contrasts 
the readiness to see this plan in isolated cases whilst 
denying the possibility of discerning it on the large 
scale. 


Pious persons are encouraged to recognize in particular 
circumstances, something more than mere chance; to 
acknowledge the guiding hand of God; e.g. when help has 
unexpectedly come to an individual in great perplexity and 
need. But these instances of providential design are of a 
limited kind, and concern the accomplishment of nothing 
more than the desires of the individual in question. But 
in the history of the World, the Individuals we have to do 
with are Peoples; Totalities that are States. We cannot, 
therefore, be satisfied with what we may call this ‘ peddling’ 
view of Providence, to which the belief alluded to limits 
itself. Equally unsatisfactory is the merely abstract, 
undefined belief in a Providence, when that belief is not 
brought to bear upon the details of the processes which it 
conducts. On the contrary our earnest endeavour must be 
directed to the recognition of the ways of Providence, the 
means it uses, and the historical phenomena in which it 
manifests itself; and we must show their connexion with 
the general principle above mentioned.” 


1 Philosophy of History, p. 16. 
7 Thid.;p. 15. 


154 Man’s Partnership with 


For Hegel history was the true Theodicy. It was 
God’s work, and in every page His providence was 
revealed and justified. 

A vast mass of material is now available for the study 
of this world-wide Providence. It has revolutionized our 
conception of national history. We discern God every- 
where at work. One pathetic attempt at a general 
survey of this field was made in the Tower of London. 
Sir Walter Raleigh there ventured to write a History 
of the World, which Charles Kingsley described as 
‘the most God-fearing and God-seeing history known 
of among human writings.’ Mr. Stebbings says— 


Its true grandeur is in the scope of the conception 
which exhibits a masque of the Lords of earth, ‘ great con- 
querors and other troublers of the world,’ rioting in their 
wantonness and savagery, as if Heaven cared not or dared 
not interfere, yet made to pay in the end to the last farthing 
of righteous vengeance. They are paraded paying it often 
in their own persons, wrecked, ruined, humiliated : and 
always in those of their descendants.? 


The work is one of the greatest ever written in a 
prison. Events have long since rendered it obsolete, 
‘but the human asides where Raleigh’s personality 
reveals itself, the little bits of incidental autobiography, 
the witty, apt illustrations will preserve the work itself 
from dying.’ 

Raleigh has a strong belief in Providence. ‘Wrong 
and injustice may prosper for a season, but surely in 


1 Sir Walter Ralegh, p. 278. 


Divine Providence 155 


the end retribution reaches the evil-doer, whatever his 
power and exaltation.’ + 

Raleigh felt that he had chosen a strange hour for 
his task, but he was moved by a strong desire to strike 
a dying blow for the oppressed. He speaks in his first 
paragraph of the personal difficulties he had to face, 


in whom, had there bin no other defect (who am all 
defect) than the time of the day, it were enough; the day 
of a tempestuous life, drawne on to the very evening, ere 
I began. But those inmost, and soule-piercing wounds, 
which are ever aching, while uncured, with the desire to 
satisfie those few friends, which I have tryed by the fire of 
adversitie, the former enforcing, the latter perswading ; 
have caused me to make my thoughts legible, and myselfe 
the subject of every opinion wise or weake. 


The subject is vaster than the historian’s canvas. 


To repeate God’s judgements in particular, upon those 
of all degrees, which have plaied with His mercies, would 
require a volume apart; for the sea of examples hath no 
bottome. 


He goes right back to the birth of the world. 


The examples of divine providence, every where found 
(the first divine histories being nothing else but a continua- 
tion of such examples) have perswaded me to fetch my 
beginning from the beginning of all things ; to wit, Creation. 
For though these glorious actions of the Almightie be no 
nearer and (as it were) linked together, that the one neces- 
sarily implyeth the other; Creation, inferring Providence 
(for what father forsaketh the child he hath begotten ?) 


+ Hume’s Sir W. Raleigh, p. 298. 


156 Man’s Partnership with 


and Providence presupposing Creation ; yet many of those 
that have seemed to excell in worldly wisdome, have gone 
about to disjoyne this coherence ; the Epicure denying both 
Creation and Providence, but granting that the world had a 
beginning ; the Aristotelian granting Providence, but deny- 
ing both the creation and the beginning? 


The prisoner in the Tower has wonderful insight 
into the impartiality manifest in human history. 


For seeing God, who is the author of all our’ tragedies, 
hath written out for us, and appointed us all the parts we 
are to play ; and hath not, in their distribution, been partiall 
to the most mighty princes of the world.? 


As we turn the leaves of his great tome the signifi- 
cance of that saying comes out more fully. History is 
a book of Divine Providence. The hand of God ig 
visible on every page. We begin to understand why 
nations lose their influence and pass into obscurity. 
They cease to serve the purposes of Divine Providence, 
which looks elsewhere for more fitting instruments. 

Our survey must be less ambitious than Raleigh’s 
eagle glance around the world. We can only select a few 
pages from national records which are continually ex- 
panding. Their lesson is manifest. Jean Paul Richter 
said well: ‘Nature forces on our heart a Creator ; history 
a Providence.’ Much is clear to us that was hidden from 
our fathers. We discern the plan of God for the nations ; 
we are able to judge in some measure how far each of 


1 Hume’s Sir W. Raleigh, p. 20. 
* History of the World, preface, p. 21.’ 


ee ee ee a ee ee 


Divine Providence 157 


them has fulfilled it. History thus becomes a succession 
of moral judgements on conduct and character rather 
than a mere record of events. Lord Acton insisted that 
‘ History is the conscience of mankind’ and ‘ Ethics are 
the marrow of history. Like Hegel he saw in events a 
vindication of the ways of God to men. Human history 
was ‘a constant progress in the direction of freedom 
under the guidance of Providence.’ Bishop Creighton 
looked on things in another light. 


My view of history is not to approach things with any 
preconceived ideas, but with the natural pietas and sympathy 
which I try to feel towards all men who do and try to do 
great things. . . . I try to put myself in their place : to see 
their limitations, and leave the course of events to pronounce 
the verdict upon system and men alike.} 


His wife says that in his History of the Papacy 


he did not wish to prove anything, to maintain any 
theories, to make any brilliant generalizations ; his aim was 
simply and straightforwardly to tell what actually happened, 
to get at the truth. All critics alike agreed in recognizing 
his absolute impartiality, some blamed him in consequence 
for being colourless.” 


No one blamed him more than Lord Acton. He 
writes * to Creighton— | 

You say that people in authority are not to be snubbed 
or sneered at from our pinnacle of conscious rectitude. I 


really don’t know whether you exempt them because of 
their rank, or of their success and power, or of their date... . 


Life and Letters, i. 376. 27 Tbid., 1,/226, 
* Creighton’s Life, i. 371. 


158 Man’s Partnership with 


I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and 
King unlike other men, with a favoured presumption that 
they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the 
other way, against holders of power, increasing as the power 
increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the 
want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and 
absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost 
always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not 
authority ; still more when you superadd the tendency or 
the certainty of corruption by authority. The inflexible 
integrity of the moral code is the secret of the authority, 
the dignity, the utility of history. 


Ranke felt it ‘a moral triumph when he could 
refrain from judging, show that much might be said on 
both sides, and leave the rest to Providence.’ ? 

There is much to be said for both sides in this con- 
troversy. We cannot read history intelligently without 
forming our judgement on the actions of men and 
nations, and the more complete our knowledge becomes 
the more likelihood is there of a reliable verdict. Yet 
we do not forget those reversals of judgement which are 
a standing protest against hasty censure of others. It 
is our wisdom to recognize that new light may lead pos- 
terity to revise many opinions which we so confidently 
pronounce to-day. There are of course certain immut- 
able things which must always guide the decision. Sir 
Thomas Browne put the matter thus— 


Think not that morality is ambulatory ; that vices in 
one age are not vices in another, or that virtues, which are 


* Acton, Modern History, p. 19. 


——— Ss =". 


Divine Providence 159 


under the everlasting seal of right reason, may be stamped 
by opinion. 


Burke takes similar ground, 


My principles enable me to form my judgement upon 
men and actions in history, just as they do in common life ; 
‘ and are not formed out of events and characters, either 
present or past. History is a preceptor of prudence, not of 
principles. The principles of true politics are those of 
morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor ever will 
admit of any other. 


Yet when these principles are recognized we are still 
bound in many cases to suspend judgement. It is not 
always easy to do so. York Powell regarded the his- 
torlan as the juror, not the judge. His business was to 
deal with the facts rather than presume to pass the 
sentence. Yet when he writes history himself he passes 
moral judgements marked, as he said of Schopenhauer, 
by ‘a splendid set of prejudices,’ 2 

Our survey of national history naturally begins 
with the Old Testament. The story of Israel is a 
memorable page in the book of Providence. Its 
service for the world belongs to the sphere of religion. 
Abraham was selected for this express purpose. ‘For 
I have known him, to the end that he may command 
his children and his household after him, that they 
may keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and 
judgement; to the end that the Lord may bring 


1 Christian Morals, section xii. 
? Spectator, February 2, 1907, p. 170. 


160 Man’s Partnership with 


upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him’ 
(Gen. xviii. 19). 

God set a fence around the chosen race that they 
might be preserved from the idolatry and the low 
moral tone of surrounding nations. At Sinai He put 
His stamp upon them, and claimed them as His 
peculiar people. Every reader of the Psalms feels that 
the nation from which they sprang had a genius for 
godliness; and the feeling deepens as we study the 
Prophets, Here is a race adapted for its providential 
work as a leaven among other nations, an abiding 
witness for the worship of God. 

But although Providence destined the Jews to be 
guides and leaders of mankind, the elect nation lived 
to themselves. Pride and selfishness marred the 
chosen vessel. The temptation was great. 

Such self-consciousness of providential distinction exposes . 
to new dangers. The sense of a peculiar vocation may be 
perverted into food for a pride which, while very conscious 
of privilege, neglects duty. This is the besetting sin of all 
privileged classes. They turn into a monopoly of favour 
what Providence meant to be an opportunity of universal 
service.’ 

Yet when every deduction is made, the world’s 
debt to the Jew is great and abiding. Its providential 
task was to be ‘the people of the Word, ? and the 
Old Testament in our hands is evidence that in 
that respect the design of God was fulfilled. The 


1 Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 304. 
2 Forsyth, Positive Preaahing, p. 10. 


Divine Providence 161 


story of the Jew is a notable page in the book of 
Providence. ‘Behind it all is the mystery of race and 
of selection. It is an ultimate fact in the history and 
government of the world, this eminent genius of one 
tiny people for religion,’ } 

Judaism had a lofty monotheism and a glorious faith 
in a living God. The essentials for a great catholic cult 
are here. If we tried to imagine a world religion, Dr. 
Talbot says— 


we should, with some generality of consent, define ag itg 
essentials three or four points which it ig striking to find 
were fundamentals of the religion of Israel, and at that 
time of no other. We should require a doctrine of God, 
lofty, spiritual, moral; a doctrine of man which should 
affirm and secure his spiritual being and his Immortality ; 
and a doctrine of the relations between God and man which 
should give reality to prayer and to the belief in Provi- 
dence, and root man’s sense of responsibility in the fact 
of his obligation to a righteousness outside and above 
himself, a doctrine, in short, of judgement. It needs no 
words to show how the religion of Israel in its full 
development not only taught these truths, but gave them 
the dignity and importance which belong to the corner- 
stones of a religion. 


The coming disasters of the race were hidden from 
the eyes of the old world. St, Paul’s contemporaries 
had no conception that the end was near, 


To them the Jewish people was not declining, but 
growing. ‘There seemed to be no end to its wealth and 
* Andrew Lang. 
* Lux Mundi, ‘ Preparation in History for Christ,’ p. 157. 


M 


162 Man’s Partnership with 


influence. The least of all peoples in itself, ib was a nation 
within a nation in every city. In the wreck of the heathen 
religions, Judaism alone seemed to remain unchanged.’ 


However much the Jews were disliked, they had a 
‘vast and penetrating influence over their neighbours.’ 
In Alexandria and other cities they were themselves 
powerfully influenced py the civilization of the Graeco- 
Roman world.? 

The Cuneiform Inscriptions show that some of the 
Genesis narratives were not exclusively the possession 
of the Israelites, ‘ but had their roots in primitive tradi- 
tions current among other nations. Tsrael, it has been 
said, turned all that it touched to gold,’ 

The Old Testament records the history of a pro- 
gressive revelation. 


When we mark how Israel progressed in knowledge and 
morality, in spite of all the forces within and without that 
were constantly dragging it downwards, we are compelled 
to ask, What was the power that taught Israel? The only 
answer must be that Israel grew under the constraint of a — 
divine discipline, and that its prophets rightly claimed to 
be the spokesmen and representatives of the one true God. 


Greece also had its vocation. Mr. Gladstone said: 
‘I claim for ancient Greece a marked, appropriated 
distinctive place in the providential order of the 
world,’4 Its province was to cultivate the intellect, to 


1 Jowett, Romans, p. 18. 

2 Lux Mundi, p. 154. 

3 Dean of Ely, Guardian, May 22, 1907, 
4 Might of Right, p. 107. 


Divine Providence 163 


enrich the human mind with the noblest visions of 
poetry and philosophy, to adorn life with the marvels 
of sculpture, painting, and architecture. Nor did it 
forget to develop every power of the body. Each 
muscle and sinew was taught to do its work and to be 
graceful in doing it. The world will always pay its 
tribute to strength and courage, to power and wealth. 
Greece taught mankind, under the guidance of Divine 
Providence, to crown strength with beauty in man 
himself, in his art and in his literature, 

We can trace the way in which Providence moved 
the race to accomplish this task. ‘The Greeks made 
life beautiful, not because they were self-pleasers, but 
because they believed in gods who cared for human 
perfection, for perfect bodies, perfect minds, perfect 
works, and splendid actions.’! } That service is abiding. 


Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain— 
wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wake- 
fulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long 


sleep—there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal 
influence of Athens.? 


But Greece pushed its worship of grace and beauty 
too far when it sacrificed truth and honour to gain 
them. Matthew Arnold says: ‘This brilliant Greece 
perished for lack of attention enough to conduct; for 
want of conduct, steadiness, character.”2 The gifted 

* Lewis Campbell, Religion in Greek Literature, p. 18. 


* Macaulay, On Mitford’s History of Greece. 
* Literature and Dogma, p. 368. 


164 Man’s Partnership with 


race thus ceased to have a part in the plan of 
Providence and sank into insignificance. Its con- 
tribution to the training of the world had, however, 
been made; and, however utilitarian society may 
become, it never ceases to feel the spell of Athenian 
art and culture. ~ Greece crowned its service to the 
world by preparing the language of the New Testament, 
and for that our debt will be as lasting as the New 
Testament itself. 

It becomes clear, as we study the history of Israel 
and of Greece, that some races are raised in the scale 
by the instrumentality of others. Dr. Arnold says— 

This would be sufficiently analogous to the course of 
Providence in other known cases, e.g. the communicating 
all religious knowledge to mankind through the Jewish 
people, and all intellectual civilization through the Greeks ; 
no people having ever yet possessed that activity of mind, 
and that power of reflection and questioning of things, 
which are the marks of intellectual advancement, without 
having derived them mediately or immediately from Greece." 


This contribution to the richer life of the world 
was not only designed by Providence, but care was also 
taken that it should be made at the moment when it 
proved most effective. Alexander’s career of conquest 
was ‘just too late to hurt the flowering and fruitage of 
Greece, just in time to carry its seed broadcast over 
Eastern, Syrian, and Egyptian lands”? Greece also 
preceded Rome, so that its culture had blossomed before 


1 Stanley’s Life of Dr. Arnold, Letter 101. 
2 Lux Mundi, p. 199. 


Divine Providence 165 


the mighty conquerors began to weld the world into 
one vast Empire. 

Rome was another mighty instrument of Divine 
Providence. Leo the Great (440-61 A.D.) gave expres- 
sion to this thought in his sermon ‘On the Feast of 
the Apostles Peter and Paul.’ 


But that the result of this unspeakable grace might be 
spread abroad throughout the world, God’s providence 
made ready the Roman Empire, whose growth has reached 
such limits that the whole multitude of nations are brought 
into close connexion. For the divinely planned work 
particularly required that many kingdoms should be leagued 
together under one empire, so that the preaching of the 
world might quickly reach to all people, when they were 
held beneath the rule of one State. 


Rome had the genius of law and government, the 
power of discipline and imperial organization, the 
faculty for conquering nations and subduing nature 
which knit communities into instruments for heroic 
tasks, and did much, before the era of invention, to 
abolish space and distance. Its system of roads linked 
the most distant provinces to the seat of government, 
It ‘acted as the police, the army, and the navy of the 
world.’ Rome starts the history of Europe, bequeath- 
ing ‘to the world the mould of government, and the 
framework of a Church,’? George Steward’s treatment 
of this subject is illuminating. The rise of Rome 

' Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Sermons of Leo the 


Great, No. 82, p. 195. 
? Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal, pp. 240-1. 


166 Man’s Partnership with 


‘from its obscurity to its culminating grandeur was a 
wonderful chapter in the history of Providence, an 
augury of some great crisis in the affairs of the world, 
and a mighty instrument for good or evil to the race.’ * 

As we watch the training of these three races and 
follow the course of their history, we gain a profoundly 
impressive picture of the wisdom with which Divine 
Providence carries out its plans in the life of nations. 
They worked out their destiny almost in sight of each 
other around the shores of the Mediterranean. Hach 
people made a mighty contribution to the plan of 
Providence, though it did not dream of the way in 
which it was being used. Still less did it dream that 
its own contribution was but part of a combination of 
gifts and resources for the spread of a new and world- 
embracing religion. That finished page in the history 
of Divine Providence forms a revelation of the wisdom 


and power of God which rebukes fear and casts out — j 


unbelief. 

Palestine was an ideal soil for the preparation of 
the new religion. Its psalmists and prophets made 
ready the way for Christ. The Jews had a penetrating 
influence among their neighbours, as both Rome and 
Alexandria bear witness. Greece, with her schools of 
philosophy, prepared the intellect to grasp the deeper 
meanings of the new religion, and gave it a tongue with 
which to express them. Rome, with her iron rule, 
brought the nations under discipline, and taught that 

1 Mediatorial Sovereignty, ii. 223. 


Divine Providence 167 


power of submission which ‘ was ready, when adopted 
by a new faith, to renew. the world.’! She also gave 
facilities of travel which have never been equalled till 
the last century. 

Scarcely had Christianity taken root in the soil 
prepared for it by the three old-world civilizations than 
Providence began to reveal designs still more far- 
reaching, It needed a higher type of character than 
Greece and Rome had produced. 


Christianity itself could not find scope to develop more 
than half its power, till it came in contact with other than 
the Greek and Latin minds: the Teutonic genius was 
needed to give full response to its inwardness and spiritu- 
ality. There is reason therefore to say, that the earthquake 
which shook down the ancient polity and culture was no 
fortuitous outburst of bad force ruining the good, but a 
subsidence of worn-out strata already denuded of all fruitful 
soil, and an upheaval of new formations charged with 
fertilizing capacity for the growth of purer beauty and 
larger life. The passage from ancient to modern history 
exhibits the forfeiture of empire by corrupt and unfaithful 
trustees, and the delivering of the world into more capable 
and hopeful hands.” 


For these conquests of Christianity Rome had 
nobly prepared the way. She seems at first to have 
sought chiefly to make herself secure and all-powerful 
in Italy. But Providence led her to wider conquest. 


Wars sprang up which she could not avoid, or which she 


1 Wedgwood, The Moral Ideal, p. 282. 
2 Martineau, A Study of Religion, ii, 127. 


168 Wan’s Partnership with 


had not expected ; her clients and allies made demands upon 
her which it was impossible to refuse, and the Senate saw 
itself committed to the conquest and administration of half 
the known world, before having definitely made up its mind 
whether such conquests were advisable or the reverse. But 
when once there was a large army it was perhaps necessary 
to go on conquering, and in any case it was not long before 
the sweets of conquest made themselves felt.? 


Rome was a mighty conqueror, but she was still 
more wonderful as a ruler and administrator. Here also 
Providence guided its instrument. Her administra- 
tion of the provinces was marked by pliancy and 
adaptability. Tacitus said the Romans valued the 
reality of Empire and disregarded its empty show. In 
Egypt they ‘left the religion of the people quite un- 
touched, and Roman governors were not above associat- 
ing themselves with their ceremonies, and devoutly 
listening to the miraculous statue of Memnon,’2 

The Roman rule did not destroy national independ- 
ence or municipal freedom. The governors had to 
protect their provinces from invasion. 


Everywhere within the charmed circle of the Roman 
dominion was peace ; sometimes, it is true, secured by stern 
measures, as in parts of Britain and in the valley of Aosta ; 
but as a rule the sternness was reserved for the barbarians 
without, and the peace was only a blessing to the provincials.’ 


The provinces sometimes suffered greatly from the 


* W. T. Arnold, The Roman System of Provincial Administration, 
p. 107. 


2 Thid., p. 22. 3 Ibid., pp. 43-4. 


Divine Providence 169 


extortion of their governors! and the collectors of 
taxes. Julius Caesar introduced many valuable reforms, 
which showed ‘how fully he had grasped the idea of an 
equally privileged and homogeneous Empire, and how 
he sought on the one hand to send Rome into the 
provinces, and on the other hand to bring the provinces 
to Rome.’ ? 


Augustus and the best of his successors travelled all 
over their vast empire, exercising strict control over the 
governors. Rome had her limitations, however. She 
did not develop self-government. 


The provinces could not have defended themselves with- 
out Rome; for 200 years Rome defended them: but if a 
wiser system had been used, if the provincial councils had 
been made into real parliaments, instead of kept to their 
so-called religious duties; above all, if there had been a 
regular and organized representation of the provinces in 
the central government, Rome and her provinces together 
might have defended themselves for a thousand years 
instead of two hundred.? 


Rome had attempted to rule her vast empire ‘ with- 
out federation and without a representative system, 
where the only sources of power were the supreme 
central government and the army.’ Those ideas were 
foreign to antiquity, but they would have gone far to 
solve the problem of the consolidation of the Empire. 

1 W. T. Arnold, The Homan System of Provincial Administration, 


p. 84. 
? Thid., p. 100. 3 Thid., pp. 136-7. * Tbid., p. 168, 


170 Man’s Partnership with 


The fall of Rome is not less wonderful than its rise 
to world-wide dominion. Its position on the edge of 
the Mediterranean, its means of rapid communication 
with the provinces, its large population, and its skilled 
engineers and powerful generals, all seemed to promise 
a long career of empire! Yet it became the prey of 
anarchists and military adventurers. The people were 
pauperized and robbed of manly independence by the 
doles of ‘a Government which played at being a 
Universal Providence. 2 Taxation became crushing, 
famine and pestilence crippled its resources, and the 
conqueror of the world fell a prey to hordes of northern 
invaders. 

When Rome was compelled to relax her hold on the 
provinces, their peoples were left to work out their own 
destiny. They had learnt much in her stern school. 
Many of the so-called barbarians were ‘half Romanized, 
often adopting for their own government the Jleges 
Romanae.® Now they had to practise as best they 
might what they had learnt. Providence was gra- 
ciously at work. Its object, as we of a later age can 
discern, was not merely to guide the history of each 
race, but to prepare the theatre and the instruments for 
a task more difficult even than the founding of 
Christianity—the reign of Christ over the whole world. 

It is hard sometimes to trace the activities of 


1 See Pearson, National Life and Character, p. 88. 
2 Spectator, February 1, 1908, p. 179. 
3 Arnold, The Roman System of Provincial Administration, p. 268. 


Divine Providence 171 


Providence as we grope amid the superstitions and the 
conflicts of the Middle Ages. But when the Renaissance 
came and new life flowed through the veins of Europe, 
we begin to see in what direction Providence is at 
work. Lord Acton describes ‘the recovery of the 
ancient world as the second landmark that divides us 
from the Middle Ages and marks the transition to 
modern life. The Renaissance signifies the renewed 
study of Greek, and the consequences that ensued from 
it, during the century and a half between Petrarca and 
Erasmus.’ ! 

The new world was thus providentially linked to the 
old. ‘Greece arose from the grave with the New 
Testament in her hand.’ The intellect of Italy awoke, 
and a great worship of beauty began. ‘The Grecian 
Empire, even in its overthrow in the year 1453, scattered 
far and wide, like an old falling pine, seed which fell 
upon a receptive soil.’ 

Printing had just been invented, scholasticism was 
being overthrown. Meanwhile Providence was busy in 
another field. Man’s horizon was suddenly widened by 
the discovery of anew world. That event really eclipsed 
the Renaissance as a factor in the development and 
progress of the human race. Portugal has the honour 
of leading the way along these new paths of provi- 
dential activity. It had no room for expansion save 
across the Atlantic, and thus became the birthplace and 
training-ground for those solitary adventurers who set 

1 Modern History, p. 71. 


172 Man’s Partnership with 


sail from its shores ‘ with the future of the world in 
their hands.’ * 

There are few parts in the province of earthly history 
where it is so strikingly evident how, without any concert, 
that which is most remote works irresistibly together with 
great and new designs’as in a secret covenant, joined only 
by the Hand of Providence.? 


‘Providence has hitherto shown a preference for 
small nations as its instruments’? It is not difficult 
to understand this. They are more homogeneous than 
great empires. They are swayed by a common 
ambition, leavened by a common spirit. They work in 
harmony, and more readily unite their resources for 
one general purpose. Israel, Greece, Rome, and the 
inhabitants of the British Isles have been cited as 
illustrations of this preference. Holland may be added 
to the list, where the brave fight for freedom of con- 
science against the tyranny of Philip II. and the 
Spanish Inquisition bore such fruit for the world. 


When she had trained this country to keep alight the 
torch of liberty and enlightenment, her welthistorische 
mission was over, and she sank into a second-rate power.' 


It is as the home of constitutional liberty that 
England has done large part of her providential work. 
As we trace the course of events by which she won 

? Acton, Lectures on Modern History, p. 52. 
* Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, i. 70. 


* Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 290. 
4 Figgis, From Gerson to Grotius, p. 197. 


Divine Providence 173 


domestic freedom, despite the tyranny of princes, we 
clearly see the guiding hand of God. The adverse 
forces were so mighty, and reasserted themselves so 
powerfully when it was thought they had been con- 
quered, that the ‘constancy of Progress, of progress in 
the direction of organized and assured freedom, is the 
characteristic fact of Modern History and its tribute to 
the theory of Providence.’ ! 

Not the least remarkable part of the providential 
equipment of the northern nations has been their 
boundless energy and enterprise. The very conditions 
of existence in these sterner climes have given those 
who grappled with Nature, ‘ energy, courage, integrity, 
and those characteristic qualities which contribute to 
raise them to a high state of social efficiency’? <A 
distinguished economist says: ‘ Men of the Anglo-Saxon 
race in all parts of the world work hard while about it, 
and do more work in the year than any others.’ 3 

Joined to this energy and industry our race has 
shown a fine-tempered optimism without which it 
would never have ventured on some of its hardest tasks 
as an imperial power, or recovered from successive 
shocks to its schemes in all parts of the earth. Nor 
must we overlook that broadening tolerance and gift of 
sympathy which has won the Anglo-Saxon greater 
triumphs as a governing power than Rome itself ever 

1 Acton, Lectures on Modern History, p. 11. 


2 Kidd, Social Evolution, p. 57. 
3 Marshall, Principles of Economies, i, p. 730. 


174 Man’s Partnership with 


achieved. England has gained much of her power by 
her ability to enter into the life of nations whom she 
has conquered. The Asiatic seems to lack sympathy. 


That is the root of all evil in him, the ultimate cause of 
all the tyrannies, the massacres, and the tortures which from 
the first have disgraced Asiatic life, and which, as seen alike 
in Turkey and in China, still continue." 


The Anglo-Saxon leaven has found a new world for 
its influence in the United States and in Canada. We 
discern a Providence in the grievous errors of the 
eighteenth century. Our American colonies were too 
vast to submit to the rule of the mother country; but 
though they shook off its yoke they retained its temper. 
Walter Savage Landor says— 


We lost Washington, but he was ours, and death gave 
him back. No man ever encountered such difficulties in 
politics and war: no man ever adapted one to the other 
with such skill. In fortitude, justice, and equanimity, no 
man ever excelled him; no exemplar has been recom- 
mended to our gratitude, love, and veneration, by the most 
partial historian, or the most encomiastic biographer, in 
which so many and so great virtues, public and private, 
were united. His name, his manners, his language, his 
sentiments, his soul were English.? 


Bishop Creighton visited the United States in 
1886. 


Perhaps the strongest impression he brought home with 
him was one of hopefulness. In America it seemed to him 


‘ Townsend, Asia and Europe, p. 15. 
® Charles James Fox, p. 78. 


Divine Providence 175 


that the future of the Anglo-Saxon race was assured, and 
that if in the course of time the influence of England as a 
world-power should diminish, yet many of the ideas which 
it was the work of England to express would still prevail 
through the influence of America.’ 


The abundant life and vigour of the American 
universities, and their willingness to try experiments, 
delighted him, ‘He felt that they were really trying 
to grapple with the problems of education, and did 
not shrink from bold experiment.’ 

Americans claim to have received from Nature an 
additional allowance of nervous energy,* and it is 
increasingly manifest, by the tasks that are being set 
before Canada and the United States, that Providence 
knows how to employ all their powers in the spread of 
light and liberty. Lord Shelbourne, in his famous 
‘sunset speech,’ predicted that when America gained 
independence, ‘the sun of England would set, and her 
glories be eclipsed for ever,’ The event has shown how 
blind was that forecast.; It is right to add that the 
Prime Minister expressed ‘his resolution to improve 
the twilight, and prepare for the rising of England’s 
sun again.’ 

Some students of modern life are sorely perplexed 
as to the future of the higher races. It is said that we 
are training the lower races to take our place. Their 

l Life, i. 367. 


* Kidd, Social Evolution, p. 57. 
° Mahon’s History of England, vii. 204, 


176 Man’s Partnership with 


numbers are increasing, and they are hemming us in to 
a, portion of the temperate zone. 

We cannot change our principles of action. We are 
bound, wherever we go, to establish peace and order ; to 
make roads, and open up rivers to commerce ; to familiarize 


other nations with a self-government which will one day 
make them independent of ourselves." 


The fear is natural, but is not its sting removed 
when we realize that Providence 1s still at work ¢ 
There are tasks which Nature almost compels the white 
man to leave to the coloured races. They have their 
appointed place in the providential order as well as we, 
and our task is to fit these humbler brethren of ours to 
Jl it. We do not regard ourselves as * the blind instru- 
ments of fate for multiplying the races that are now our 
subjects, and will one day be our rivals.’ ? » 

We have carried our sanitary science and engineer- 
ing skill into these countries. We have saved the 
races of Africa and India from destroying each other. 
This ig all true. But is it true that they are our rivals ? 
Was not that the mistake of the darker ages? Have 
we not each our providential task ? Shall we not gain 
prosperity and happiness by fulfilling it and helping the 
lower races also to fulfil it ? 

This has been forcibly brought out by a young 
thinker, The underlying assumption in Mr. Pearson's 
argument is that the lower races are permanently 


1 Pearson, National Life and Character, p. 13. 
a Ibid, p: 83. 


Divine Providence 177 


to remain lower races, and either that their contributions to 
the ennobling of man’s destiny are, and always will be, 
negligible, or else that our main concern is not with the 
maintenance of higher principles and wider views of life, 
but with the perpetuation of our particular variety of 
humanity. . . . If the coming lords of the earth are to be 
ethically superior to ourselves, their attainment of political 
supremacy is a thing to be welcomed without shrinking.) 


The relation between the various races of the world 
is a subject of engrossing interest, 


It is historically evident that some nations, some persons, 
some periods of time, some series of events, have influenced 
much more than others the spiritual development of man- 
kind. If we compare from this point of view the Greeks 
and the Phoenicians, Plato and Xenophon, the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries, or the Roman and the Mongol 
empires, we shall see the difference between the main stream 
and a backwater. But if this inequality cannot be denied, 
neither can the possibility that God’s general providence 
over the world may culminate in some more special spiritual 
development of a part of the world. There is nothing 
against it but the assumption which was too rash for 
Matthew Tindal, that God is bound in justice to give equal 
light to all men. The world is not such a dead level as this. 
Some persons or peoples must be more fitted than others to 
receive the revelation—or to discover the truth—which 
needs next to be known at a given time. Such fitness will 
not of necessity imply a higher degree of general moral 
excellence. The difference may be made by some special 
delicacy of feeling, grasp of mind, or force of will, according 
to its nature. The Jews, for instance, are described as bad 
receivers, because they were a stiff-necked people, and slow 


* Alston, The White Man’s Work in Asia and Africa, pp. 117-18. - 
N 


178 Man’s Partnership with 


to learn; but they must also have been good receivers, 
because they were a stiff-necked people, and slow to forget. 
So too we can see special qualities (apart from any general 
moral excellence) which may at various times have fitted the 
Greeks, the Romans, or the English to take the part they 
plainly have taken in the development of human thought on 
things divine.’ 

No modern writer has thrown more light on this 
study of Providence in history than Lord Acton. In 
his letter outlining the scheme for his Cambridge Modern 
History, he describes universal history as moving ‘in a 
succession to which the nations are subsidiary,’ and says— 

Their story will be told, not for their own sake, but in 
reference and subordination to a higher series, according to 


the time and the degree in which they contribute to the 
common fortunes of mankind. 


Southey was of that mind when he made Monte- 
sinos say— 

An excellent friend of mind, one of the wisest, best, and 
happiest men whom I have ever known, delights in this 
manner to trace the moral order of Providence through the 
revolutions of the world ; and in his historical writings he 
keeps it in view as the pole star of his course.” 


The study of Providence in history grows more 
impressive as it comes nearer to our own times. Modern 
history is 
a narrative told of ourselves, the record of a life which is 
our own, of efforts not yet abandoned to repose, of problems 


1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 133-4. 
® Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, No. 2, 


Divine Providence 179 


that still entangle the feet and vex the heart of men. Every 
part of it is weighty with innumerable lessons that we must 
learn by experience and at a great price, if we know not how 
to profit by the example and teaching of those who have 
gone before us, in a society largely resembling the one we 
live in.’ 

Disregard of the rights of others is as great a sin in 
@ nation as in an individual. Luther spoke of the Turk 
as the personified wrath of God, and the curbing of 
Spain’s power was the salvation of Europe. 

Nations, then, are instruments in the hands of Provi- 
dence. Each has its place in the divine scheme, its 
special relation to all the rest. The object for which 
they are used is their own uplifting, not merely in 
physical and intellectual progress but also in the moral 
and spiritual scale, and the uplifting of the whole 
race. George Steward, in his noble work on Mediatorial 
Sovereignty, suggests that the story of Babel should be 
read in the light of St, Paul’s declaration on Mars’ 
Hill— 
for the lesson taught us by the confusion of tongues seems 
to be the necessity foreseen by Providence of breaking up 
the human stock into new national centres, their settle- 
ment in separate territories, and the advancement of the 
common weal by an arrangement bearing the force of a 
perpetual law, in opposition to the predilections of patriarchy, 
and the dreams of modern cosmopolitans. . . . The Plan of 
Providence is to preserve the race from stagnation and 
effeteness, by planting in it the principles of constant but 


* Acton, Lectures on Modern History, p. 8, 


180 Man’s Partnership with 


orderly change. Races are moulded or extinguished by 
intercourse with others. Nations rise and fall, not as 
monotonous cycles of events, but by laws of Providence, 
giving them births and doomsdays, much on the same prin- 
ciple as it does individuals.* 


Providence requires its chosen instruments to be 
always ready for a new march along the road towards 
the highest things. There must be no loss of energy 
or of power of adaptation to the varying conditions of 
service. Races fade away when they cease to serve the 
purpose of Providence, and there are always good reasons 
for their disappearance. If they block the path of moral 
and intellectual and spiritual advance, they are doomed. 
Dr. Arnold says— 

All the world is, by the very law of its creation, in 
eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world 
may be traced to that natural, but most deadly error of 


human intolerance and corruption, that our business is to” 
preserve and not to improve.” 


It is a great art for the historian to discern these 
workings of Providence. Professor Bonamy Price, 
writing of Dr. Arnold, says— 


God’s dealings with any particular generation of men 
are but the application of the eternal truths of His provi- 
dence to their particular circumstances, and the form of that 
application has at different times greatly varied. Here it 
was that Arnold’s most characteristic eminence lay. He 
seemed to possess the true xapiopa, the very spiritual gift 


1 Mediatorial Sovereignty, ii. pp. 67-8. 
2 Life, i. 259, 


; 
Divine Providence 181 


of yvéous, having an insight not only into the actual form of 
the religion of any single age, but into the meaning and 
substance of God’s moral government generally ; a vision of 
the eternal principles by which it is guided; and such a 
profound understanding of their application, as to be able 
to set forth God’s manifold wisdom, as manifested at divers 
times, and under circumstances of the most opposite kind. 


A survey of the history of the world is a great help 
to faith in a gracious guidance of human affairs. 


That the providence exercised over the childhood of 
humanity did its work well is evidenced by the goodly man- 
hood it reached in the earliest civilizations, of which ancient 
history, and still more ancient unearthed monuments, bear 
record: those of India, Egypt, China, Babylon, with their 
language, arts, wisdoms, religions; imperfect, rude in many 
respects, yet not without elements of real, permanent value.? 


We are not blind to the darker sides of history, yet 
we cannot fail to discern wonderful progress. 

Taking long periods, we perceive the advance of moral 
over material influence, the triumph of general ideas, the 
gradual amendment. The line of march will prove, on the 
whole, to have been from force and cruelty to consent and 


association, to humanity, rational persuasion, and the per- 
sistent appeal to common, simple, and evident maxims.® 


This onward march is a growing proof of Providence 
in the history of nations, A keen student of society 
says— ‘ 

We behold the whole drama of progress in life becoming 


’ Stanley’s Life of Dr. Arnold, chap. iv. 
* Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 167. 
* Acton, Modern History, p. 33. 


182 Man’s Partnership with 


instinct, as it were, with a meaning which remains continu- 
ally projected beyond the content of the present.’ 

This could never have been accomplished without an 
overruling Providence. We see that the progress might 
have been much more continuous and extended if men 
had followed God’s leading. Human passion and 
ambition have often made shipwreck of the world’s 
peace and clogged its progress; yet, however retarded, 
it has moved onward, and in the right direction. 

Again and again the retrogressive elements become 
terribly dangerous, they reach the very brink of disastrous 
success; but the final struggle invariably vindicates the 
providence of God, and furthers the highest welfare of man- 
kind.’ 

History thus gives a general view, a wider horizon 
for our study of Providence. The survey of a single 
lifetime brings out much that was hidden from us when 
we studied a detached event, but history extends the 
survey over many generations. The judgement of the 
wisest may be at fault when only a portion of the provi- 
dential design is seen. 

In history things get beaten out to their true issues. 
The strands of thought that are incompatible with each 
other get separated ; conflicting tendencies, at first unper- 
ceived, are brought to light; opposite one-sidednesses 


correct each other; and the true consequences of theories 
reveal themselves with inexorable necessity.’ 
1 Kidd, Principles of Western Civilization, p. 51. 


2 Watkinson, The Supreme Conquest, p. 28. 
* Dr. Orr, Christian View of God and the World, pp. 55-6. 


Divine Providence 183 


God’s plan thus shines out in contradistinction to 
that of man. He is on the side of moral and spiritual 
progress. Providence in the life of nations has some 
pages which illuminate all the rest. The spectacle of 
Israel, Greece, and Rome preparing the way for Christ 


awakens in the mind a sense of awe, as if here the broad, 
obscure page of history suddenly became luminous with 
divine meaning. But surely if God has so acted once in 
history, He has done it again and again, whenever any great 
and momentous crisis in the progress of that same gospel 
has drawn near. The Praeparatio Evangelica is no solitary 
incident of the divine government of the world. 


The world moves, and it moves towards truth and 
goodness. History converges towards a glorious end 
when God’s will shall be the law of life for all His 
creatures. We may sum all up in the words of Lord 
Acton— 


I hope that even this narrow and disedifying section of 
history will aid you to see that the action of Christ who is 
risen on mankind whom He redeemed fails not, but increases ; 
that the wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection 
but in the improvement of the world ; and that achieved 
liberty is the one ethical result that rests on the converging 
and combined conditions of advancing civilization. Then 
you will understand what a famous philosopher said, that 
History is the true demonstration of Religion.? 


George Steward shows how ‘the national form of 
human life signally corsists with mediational truths, 


? Cairns, Christianity in the Modern World. 
? Acton, Modern History, pp. 11-12. 


184 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


This seems the most gracious expedient for retrieving 
the original benediction, “Replenish the earth and 
subdue it.” As an organism fitted to occupy and 
improve territory, to elicit all the more hidden resources 
of nature, to expand the human faculties, and to elevate 
man to his original position as lord of the world, national 
life is the ordinance of providential goodness, and the 
orb of providential wisdom. Government, commerce, 
agriculture, arts, sciences, and civic economy—all 
things that advance and perfect man socially and 
intellectually—take their rise from this source. .. . 
Christ is the universal National Head; and the prin- 
ciples and spirit of His religion are the perfection of 
national rule,’ ? 


* Mediatorial Sovereignty, ii. 84-5. 


IX 


PROVIDENCE IN CHURCH 
HISTORY 


But the gracious providence of Almighty God hath I trust put 
these thorns of contradiction in our sides, lest that should steal upon 
the Church in a slumber, which now I doubt not but through His 
assistance may be turned away from us, bending thereunto ourselves 
with constancy.—Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, Ep. Dedicatory, p. 9. 


Were we permitted, indeed, to witness a perfectly restored and 
united Church on a scale commensurate with the bounds of modern 
Christendom, the conversion of the world must, humanly speaking, 
become an event at no distant day.—SrewarpD, Mediatorial Sove- 
reignty, ii. 822. 

The study of Modern History is, next to Theology itself, and only 
next in so far as Theology rests on a divine revelation, the most 
thoroughly religious training that the mind can receive. It is 
no paradox to say that Modern History, including Mediaeval History 
in the term, is co-extensive in its field of view, in its habits of 
criticism, in the persons of its most famous students, with Ecclesias- 
tical History.—Srusss, Lectures. 


CONTENTS 
Special providence in the thoice of St. Paul . ; ‘ . . 
Providential victory of Christian truth . "4 . . s . 
The Church of the Fourth Century . . . , . » 


The leaven of Christianity spreads among the barbarians. : 
Providence in English Christianity . : . : ; : . 
Religion adapted to the soil . ‘ : . . . . . 
Missionary work in and around York . ( : : ‘ 
Victory of Mohammedanism in the East . ‘ “ ; < . 
The Church of the Middle Ages . . . ‘ . . . 


Influence of St. Francis . 3 F ‘ ; , 3 ‘ . 
The work of the Lollards and Wyclif . ; . ‘ ° . 
Desire for reform within the Roman Church . ‘ ‘ F 


The Reformation and Luther . ° . ; : . . . 
The English Reformation . . . . . . : : : 
Influence of Erasmus. ‘ f % » ‘ $ " ‘ a 
Providence in the Evangelical Revival . ; - 4 #® as . 
Methodism a Providential Mosaic . ° P . : . . 
The Wesleys and Whitefield . : ° . m ; ° ° 
Methodist history after Wesley’s death . : ‘ . . : 
Forms of Church life developed to meet varying needs of Society 
A humbling yet inspiring record . : . . . ° : 


LITERATURE 


PAGE 
1387 


189 
190 
191 
192 
193 
194 
196 
197 
197 
198 
199 
199 
201 
201 
203 
204 
205 
206 
208 
208 


Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History; Gardner, The Growth of 
Christianity ; Ki, Dale, National Life and Character in the Mirror of Early 
English Literature; Bede, Ecclesiastical History; Acton, Lectures on 
Modern History ; Lindsay, Luther and the German Reformation, and History 


of the Reformation. 


a 


i] 
; 
i 
: 


IX 


than in the history of the Church. Christi- 

anity itself was a providential scheme which 
we cannot fully appreciate till we realize ‘in how 
many ways the gospel formed a link in a chain’ of 
circumstance shaped by divine wisdom.! Peter is 
a providential man. He is trained for his part on the 
Day of Pentecost, and fills it nobly as a fearless, whole- 
hearted witness for his Master. Peter, however, was 
neither fitted by birth nor education for carrying the 
gospel into the world of Greek and Roman civilization. 
That task required a scholar in sympathy with the 
intellectual life of Athens and Corinth, and able to hold 
his ground against every antagonist whom he might 
meet in Ephesus and Rome. For such tasks Saul of 
Tarsus was Christ’s chosen vessel. Professor Ramsay 
refers to the ‘peculiar suitability of Tarsus to educate 
and mould the mind of him who should in due time 
make the religion of the Jewish race intelligible to the 
Graeco-Roman world, and should be able to raise that 
world up to the moral level of the Hebrew people and 


[o: Providence of God is nowhere more evident 


1 Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 1. 


188 Man’s Partnership with 


the spiritual level of ability to sympathize with the 
Hebrew religion in its perfected stage,’ 

Tarsus was a famous centre of Greek culture, 
where the mind of the future apostle was unconsciously 
leavened by larger thoughts; and the Jewish rabbi at 
whose feet he was brought up in Jerusalem had a 
singularly wide outlook and large tolerance, as the Acts 
of the Apostles bears witness. By a wonderful inter- 
position of Providence, St. Paul was enlisted in the 
service of the Christian Church. He himself never 
ceased to marvel at the transformation of his life, and 
Christian men of every age have shared his wonder. 
He is pre-eminently the providential man of the 
apostolic age, ‘an intellectual giant compared with 
the rest,’ and one who ‘laboured more than all.’ 2 
Wherever he goes he proves himself a worthy 
champion of the new faith. He is free from bigotry. 
He is in sympathy with the universal quest of God, 
which he discerns amid idolatry and superstition, In 
Ephesus he spent three years of unrivalled influence ; 
in Athens he was able to unfold a view of Divine 
Providence which still enthrals the imagination and 
gives expression to our loftiest ideas of national history. 
His temper is cosmopolitan. He traces God in the 
religious and the national life of the world. Before 
Felix and Festus, before Agrippa and Nero, he is a 
noble representative of the new faith. His life 


? The Cities of St. Paul, p. 88. 
? Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 38. 


Divine Providence 189 


culminates in Rome, where even his bonds become a 
providential means of spreading his message. 

St. Paul’s influence has never ceased to deepen and 
expand. His Epistles have shaped the whole course of 
Christian thought. There is no department of theology 
which does not bear his stamp. He had emphatically 
the mind of Christ. Absolutely loyal to the gospel, he 
opens up its meaning and shows its manifold applica- 
tions to human life in a way possible to no other leader 
in the early Church, save perhaps to the martyr whose 
mantle fell on his shoulders. 

The career of St. Paul is wonderful, and it is most 
wonderful that so mighty and original a genius did not 
break the Church asunder but only widened it.? 

Dr. Percy Gardner describes the process by which 
Christian ideas prevailed as the baptism of Judaea and 
Hellas and Rome. The early Christians were ‘often 
narrow, sometimes unjust’ in relation to the beliefs and 
morals of the heathen world, but they had faith in their 
mission. Jewish morality was baptized by Christ 
Himself in the Sermon on the Mount, which represents 
the best current morality of Israel, ‘in part rejected, 
and in part carried further, made deeper and broader, 
more spiritual and more human, by the introduction 
of .. . inwardness as opposed to formality, and an 
abiding sense of a close relation to an indwelling 
Spiritual power.’ ? 


1 Gardner, The Growth of Christianity, pp. 28-9. 
2 Tbid., p. 64. 


190 Man’s Partnership with 


The relations of the new religion to Hellas were not 
speedily fixed, but a process of baptism began with St. 
Paul and the Fourth Gospel which is scarcely yet com- 
plete. Roman institutions and the Christian religion 
were drawn closer through contact with ‘the loosely 
organized but individually powerful Teutons.’* The 
capacity to meet new and unforeseen conditions is a 
striking evidence of the Divine Providence that shaped 
the course of Primitive Christianity. ‘Through the 
unconscious leaders of the Church, the ever-living 
spirit of Christ worked to ends of which they did not 
dream.’ ? 

The fourth century furnishes a vantage-point from 
which the Providence that guides the Church may be 
surveyed. In one sense she had won her victory over 
the world, Constantine, with all his blemishes, was an 
instrument of Providence who allowed himself to be 
borne along the path which led the Church to new 
power and influence. Persecution ceased. The con- 
stancy of the martyrs, the purity and unselfishness of 
lowly men and women who trod in the steps of Christ, 
had shamed the hardness and profligacy of those times. 
Victory brought graver perils and fiercer tests. Emperors 
and empresses aspired to shape Christian teaching ; 
worldly ambition crept into the Church’s councils. 
But Providence had its great men ready. Athanasius 
fought the battle against Arianism in the Council of 


1 Gardner, The Growth of Christianity, p. 165. 
? Thid., p. 168. 


Divine Providence IgI 


Nicaea ; Ambrose preserved the city of Milan from the 
Arian contagion, and fearlessly exercised discipline on 
a Roman emperor. St. Jerome’s learning bore fruit 
for many generations in the Vulgate. St. Augustine 
moulded Christian theology. When civilization and 
religion were endangered by the barbarian invasion of 
Italy, the Church proved a mighty bulwark. St. 
Augustine, in his Civitas Dei, written after the sack 
of Rome, saw that her visible empire had been allowed 
to perish in order that the great spiritual Kingdom 
might be established. 


In the midst of the universal wreck of Western civiliza- 
tion the Christian Church alone stood erect, and ready to 
face the darkening future of the world. Some prophetic 
instinct—or shall we call it Providence ?—had long been 
gathering into the Church the various powers needed for 
the thousand years of conflict which no man had foreseen. 


The barbarians who sacked Rome were no strangers 
to the gospel. It had already laid its yoke upon them 
and tamed their passions, so that whilst Alaric des- 
troyed the temples, the churches of Rome were sacred 
in his eyes. Some of the Gothic tribes already pro- 
fessed Christianity. They had carried off Christian 
prisoners in their raids, especially from Cappadocia, 
These captives saw their providential opportunity, and 
became missionaries among the barbarians, who accepted 
_ the new faith. Other teachers were sent for. Ulfilas, 


' Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 78. 


192 Man’s Partnership with 


with prophetic instinct, translated the Bible into their 
language, and the work spread. Jerome watched the 
triumphs from his retirement in Bethlehem with eager 
interest. 


Lo, the Armenian lays down his quiver; the Huns are 
learning the Psalter; the frosts of Scythia glow with the 
warmth of faith ; the ruddy armies of the Goths bear about 
with them the tabernacles of the Church ; and therefore, 
perhaps, do they fight with equal fortune against us, because 
they trust in the religion of Christ equally with us. 


The greatness of Rome’s institutions impressed its 
conquerors. ‘The glory of the world which had 
perished was reflected on her face’? ‘They craved for 
a development and civilization for themselves equal in 
all respects to that upon which they had descended 
from the north,’? 

Christianity thus recommended itself to the bar- 
barians. ‘Their leaders instinctively perceived its 
immense value as a political and social institution, 
much more highly developed than anything they 
themselves possessed ; and on that account they first 
began to embrace its precepts.’ * 

When Augustine appeared in Kent, Ethelbert 
honoured him as a representative of the power which 


1 Epis. 107, 2. 

2 Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 175. 

3. Dale, National Life and Character in the Mirror of Early 
English Literature, p. 68. 

4 Thid., p. 63. 


Divine Providence 193 


had built roads and cities in Britain. He and his 
people were thus brought into contact with the 
civilization of Rome. The Teutonic invaders of 
England had not been influenced by Christianity like 
others of their race. ‘In England, for many years, 
they held to the old heathenism and nature-worship, 
to the old mythology, to the old sacrificial and 
ceremonial rites,’ } 

But their hour of opportunity came in due time. 
Providence watched over the early days of English 
Christianity. Pope Gregory dealt wisely with the 
superstitious Saxons. In a letter to the Abbot Mellitus, 
who was going to Britain in 601 A.D., he directs that the 
idol temples should not be destroyed, but ‘converted 
from the worship of devils to the service of the true 
God.’ Instead of the heathen sacrifices there were to 
be religious festivals, in which the people might glorify 
God and return thanks to the Giver of al] things 
for their abundance. 

For there is no doubt that it is impossible to cut off 
everything at once from their rude natures; because he 


who endeavours to ascend to the highest place rises by 
degrees or steps, and not by leaps.’ 


> 


The new faith thus took root more firmly. | 


In fact, the Englishman seems to have read himself, his 
"own motives, his own instincts, his own life, thought, and 
1 H. Dale, National Life and Character in the Mirror of Early 


English Literature, p. 61. 
2 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I. xxx. 


194 Man’s Partnership with 


character, into his new religion; and the more sincerely 
religious he became, the greater was often the change from 
the apostolic ideal. 


The problem so often presented on the modern 
mission-field faced these workers in Britain, and the 
result of the Pope’s prudent counsel was soon manifest. 


The Englishman made Christianity his own, and gave 
it a form which especially appealed to him; and thus the 
final victory of the faith was assured. As time went by, 
the impression made went very deep; and the influence of 
the conversion upon both character and social life became 
exceedingly great. A deeper charity towards the un- 
fortunate, and even the criminal, was inculcated, to be 
increased still more by the gentle teaching of the pious 
Aidan and the monks of Iona; and an organized attack 
was made upon all that was harsh and brutal in the 
national temperament.? 


The best work of Christianity has been done with | 
the minimum of unsettlement. Certain channels were 
already open, through which the new life began to flow. 
The transition was thus made more gradual, though 
such a course had its manifest dangers. 

York had been the military stronghold and the 
centre of civilization in the days of the Romans, and 
it retained its position under the Saxons, When 
Gregory learned from Augustine ‘that the harvest 
which he had was great and the labourers but few,’ he 
sent him a company of helpers, among whom was 


1 Dale, National Life, p. 74 
4 Thid., p. 74. 


Divine Providence 195 


Paulinus, destined by Providence to become the mis- 
sionary of Northumbria. In 625 Ethelburga left Kent 
to marry Edwin. Bede says— 


Paulinus, @ man beloved of God, was ordained bishop 
[on July 21, 625], to go with her, and by daily exhortations, 
and celebrating the heavenly Mysteries, to confirm her and 
her company, lest they should be corrupted by intercourse 
with the pagans. | 


The queen’s chaplain did not journey northward 
in vain. On Easter Eve, April 12, 627, the king was 
baptized at York in a timber church dedicated to 
St. Peter, which had been erected in haste. As soon 
as he was baptized he began to build around this a 
larger and nobler church of stone, whose site is marked 
by the choir of the present minster, The building was 
still unfinished when the king died six years later, 
Paulinus meanwhile was evangelizing the surrounding 
region. The king was as zealous in winning converts 
as the bishop. That was a golden age. Bede says 
that a woman might walk through Edwin’s dominions 
with her new-born babe without receiving any harm. 
When the king was slain in battle in 633 at the age 
_ of forty-eight, his head was brought to York and buried 
in his new church. Paulinus returned to Kent with 
the queen, Providence had guided his steps and made 
his work fruitful. He had laid the foundation for the 
spread of Christian truth in the North. Hilda, the 
famous abbess of Whitby, was one of his converts, and 
became the trusted guide of kings, princes, and bishops. 


196 Man’s Partnership with 


The great missionary, Cuthbert, was consecrated Bishop 
of Lindisfarne in 685 at York. 

Egbert, who had been a pupil of Bede’s, became 
Bishop of York in 735. He founded a school in the 
city, the library of which was famous throughout 
Europe. Bede paid him a short visit here. Alcuin, 
the greatest scholar of his day, was teacher in the 
bishop’s school, which he left for Charlemagne’s 
dominions. The emperor himself became one of his 
pupils.’ 

As we survey this period we see how the leaven 
worked, All the forces of the new religion were arrayed 
against the national drunkenness. The Church tamed 
men’s passions, and ‘laboured for quietness and peace.’ 
England thus became a home of learning and a centre 
of missionary zeal. 


If we turn from Britain to the old homes of 


Christian civilization, we find that the Eastern Church 
of the seventh century failed to stem the tide of 
Mohammedanism. It had spent its strength in specu- 
lations as to abstruse questions of divinity, and glorified 
monasticism as the noblest means for cultivating the 
Christian life. The alliance between religion and 
morality was dissolved, and ‘the ground literally dis- 
appeared from under the feet of Eastern Christendom 
at the moment when it imagined itself to have come 
near to God.’ ? 


1 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book ii. 
2 Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 148, 


Divine Providence 197 


The worship of saints and angels, with all manner 
of superstition, degraded both the people and their 
leaders. As to the government of the Church, John 
Wesley was justified in his scathing censure on the 
Councils. ‘Surely Mahometanism was let loose to 
reform the Christians! I know not but Constantinople 
has gained by the change.’ ! 

The Papacy had its days of pride and glory when 
princes quailed before its interdicts, But that road did 
not lead to enduring influence. 


Towards the end of the Middle Ages the Church was 
visibly disorganized by its victory over the world. It had 
forsaken its proper function as a witness and keeper, and 
became a judge and divider ; and the task had overstrained 
and demoralized it... . The good they [the Popes] did 
was far outweighed by the moral scandal of their rapacity, 
treachery, base use of sacred things, and evil living 
generally? 


There were noble witnesses for better things. St. 
Francis of Assisi, the saint of gentleness, was a gift of 
Providence for a hard age when religion was being 
banished to cloisters, and nobles and soldiers lived for 
pleasure and for glory. Wherever the Dominicans 
gained a footing the Franciscans seemed to be led to 
labour. ‘It was a clear sign of a divine Providence 
that they did.”® The hard intellectualism of the 


1 Journal, August 5, 1754. 
2 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 203. 
3 Maurice, Mediaeval Philosophy, p. 166. 


198 Man’s Partnership with 


Dominicans was corrected by the superstition of the 
Franciscan. ‘If each held down some truth, each 
brought some side of truth into light which its rival 
would have crushed.’? The Church of these days was 
outwardly and visibly triumphant in a degree which 
she has seldom surpassed. ‘It was the age of St. 
Francis and of St. Louis, of Bonaventura and of 
Thomas Aquinas, of Pope Innocent III and of Dante.’ 

The Lollards were bearing their witness, and Wychif, 
in his opposition to the Papal claims, in his protest 
against the abuse of the monastic life, in his appeal to the 
Bible, in his spiritual view of the Sacraments, even in his 


positive doctrines, saw beyond all other men the deep needs 
of the age and the future of spiritual religion.° 


Worldly ambition marred the influence of the Roman 
Church, yet we must not overlook this brighter side. 
The way was being prepared for better things. 


It seems the rule in Providence to afford a prelude to 
ereat changes, like a porch to a building, an overture to a 
musical composition ; thus Wyclif preceded the Refor- 
mation ; Hus, Luther; John, Christ.* 


A spirit of expectation was abroad. The hunger 
for a more spiritual religion beeame keen. Everything 
that Lord Acton says about this period has double 
interest as the witness of a Romanist and a scholar. 

1 Maurice, Mediaeval Philosophy, p. 166. 
? Gardner, The Growth of Christianity, p. 194. 


* Tbid., p. 217. 
* Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life. 


Divine Providence 199 


During the latter part of the Middle Ages the desire for 
reform of the Church was constant. It was strongest and 
most apparent among laymen, for a famous monastic writer 
of the fourteenth century testified that the laity led better 
lives than the clergy. ‘To the bulk of ordinary Christians 
reform meant morality in the priesthood. It became intoler- 
able to them to see the Sacrament administered habitually by 
sacrilegious hands, or to let their daughters go to confession 
to an unclean priest. The discontent was deepest where 
men were best. They felt that the Organization provided 
for the Salvation of Souls was serving for their destruction, 
and that the more people sought the means of grace in the 
manner provided, the greater risk they incurred of imbibing 
corruption.’ 


The Reformation had its galaxy of providential men, 
among whom Luther still shines as the sun. Lord 
Acton describes him ‘as a profound conservative and 
a reluctant innovator, who felt the fascination that 
belongs to lapse of time’? He is puzzled that a man 
of such a spirit should have been so insensible to the 
overtures made him by Rome. 

Luther at Worms is the most pregnant and momentous fact 
in our history, and the problem is to know why he so rigidly 
repelled the advances of the confessor, of the Chancellor of 
Baden, and the Elector of Treves? Was it simply the 
compelling logic of Protestantism, or was there some private 
saltpetre of his own, a programme drawn from his person- 
ality and habits of mind? There was no question at issue 


which had not either been pronounced by him insufficient 
for separation, or which was not abandoned afterwards, or 


! Lectures on Modern History, p. 90. 
2° 1 bids. aD; 


200 » Man’s Partnership with 


modified in a Catholic sense by the moderating hand of 
Melanchthon.? 


There was a Providence in the distrust which held 
Luther aloof from the Papacy. He had his manifest 
limitations. Professor Lindsay says his dislike and 
distrust of the ‘common man,’ due to the Peasants’ 
War, ‘led him to bind his reformation in the fetters of 
a secular control, to the extent of regarding the secular 
government as having a quasi-episcopal function. He 
did his best within Germany to prevent attempts to 
construct anything like a democratic Church govern- 
ment,’ 2 

His inability to understand or appreciate the heroic 
Zwingli and his followers ‘worked many an evil to the 
German Reformation,and produced much of the disasters 
of the horrible Thirty Years’ War.’® His failure 
to see the promise and potency of life which lay in the rude 
strivings of the ‘common man’ marred his reforming 
work, and still paralyses the European portions of the 
Church which bears his name. These and other defects 
may have nevertheless aided him in doing what he did 
accomplish. He was not too far before his contemporaries 


to prevent them seeing his footprints and following in his 
steps.* 


Yet with all his limitations the peasant’s son 
was mighty for his providential mission. ‘Luther 


? Lectures on Modern History, p. 101. 

* Luther and the German Reformation, p. 189. 
3 Ibid., p. 189. 

* Ibid., p. 264. 


Eee 


O_o ee es ee eee 


Divine Providence 201 


occasioned the greatest revolution which Western 
Europe has ever seen, and he ruled it till his death. 
History shows no other man with such kingly power.’? 

He gathered up all the forces of the German 
people, its princes, scholars, citizens, and peasants, and 
used them to set his countrymen free from their 
subserviency to the Church of Rome.? 

In our own country the struggle took its form from 
the national genius. 


This is the broad distinction between the Continental 
Reformation and the contemporary eventin England. ‘The 
one was the strongest religious movement in the history of 
Christendom ; the other was borne onward on the crest of a 
wave not less overwhelming, the state that admits no 
division of power. Therefore, when the spirit of foreign 
Protestantism caught the English people they moved on 
lines distinct from those fixed by the Tudors ; and the reply 
of the seventeenth century to the sixteenth was not a 
development, but a reaction. Whereas Henry could exclude, 
or impose, or change religion at will with various aid from 
the gibbet, the block, or the stake, there were some among 
the Puritans who enforced, though they did not discover, 
the contrary principle, that a man’s conscience is his castle, 
with kings and parliaments at a respectful distance.® 


The intellectual side of the Reformation finds its 
central figure in Erasmus, ‘He was eminently an 
international character; and was the first European 
who lived in intimacy with other ages besides his own, 

1 Lindsay, Luther and the German Reformation, p. 265. 


* See Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 254. 
* Lord Acton, Modern History, pp. 142-3. 


202 Man’s Partnership with 


and could appreciate the gradual ripening and enlarge- 
ment of ideas,’ ? 

He was at first a scholar rather than a divine. 

In later life the affairs of religion absorbed him, and he 
lived for the idea that the reform of the Church depended 
on a better knowledge of early Christianity, in other words, 


on better self-knowledge, which could only result from a 
slow and prolonged-literary process.” 


Printing had been discovered for sixty years, and 
24,000 works had issued from the press, some of them 
more than a hundred times, before any one thought of 
printing the Greek Testament. Erasmus published his 
first edition in 1516. Luther used it for his translation. 
Erasmus boasted that ‘Letters had remained Pagan in 
Italy, until he taught them to speak of Christ.’ He 
wished to replace systematic theology by spiritual 
religion, and was anxious for the reform of abuses in 
the Church. 


In later days he was one of the first writers put on the 
Index. But throughout his career as a divine, that is, for 
the last quarter of a century that he lived, he was con- 
sistently protected, defended, consulted by Popes, until 
Paul ITT offered him a Cardinal’s hat and desired that he 
would settle at Rome. He told Leo X that he thought it 
a mistake to censure Luther, with whom he agreed ag to 
many of the matters calling for reform. But whilst Luther 
attributed the prevailing demoralization to false dogmas 
and a faulty constitution, Erasmus sought the cause in 


* Acton, Modern History, ‘The Renaissance.’ 
? Thid. 


Divine Providence 203 


ignorance and misgovernment.... Erasmus belonged, 
intellectually, to a later and more scientific or rational age. 
The work which he had initiated, and which was interrupted 
by the Reformation troubles, was resumed at a more 
acceptable time by the scholarship of the seventeenth 
century.’ 


The need for reform was not only felt by Luther 
and Erasmus. Many enlightened members of the 
Church of Rome shared their feeling. The Council of 
Trent had a providential opportunity which it allowed 
to slip through its fingers, 

The eighteenth century witnessed that providential 
Revival which prepared this country for a vast 
extension of its prosperity and influence. Our chief 
historians acknowledge that the victories won by 
Marlborough and Wolfe, the inventions of Arkwright 
and Watt, which made the century memorable, yield in 
importance to the religious revolution brought about 
by the preaching of the Wesleys and Whitefield. 
Methodism was used by Providence to save England 
from the revolutionary temper which laid France in 
ruins. Cardinal Newman says— 

Tt has happened before now, that comparatively retired 
posts have been filled by those who have exerted the most 
extensive influence over the destinies of religion in the 
times’ following them; as in the acts and pursuits of this 


world, the great benefactors of mankind are frequently 
unknown.? 


! Acton, Modern History, pp. 88-9. 
2 University Sermons, p. 98. 


204 Man’s Partnership with 


That tribute to obscure lives finds notable illus- 
tration in the story of Susanna Wesley. She is 
emphatically the providential woman of the eighteenth 
century. To be the mother of the Wesleys and the 
mother of Methodism was a mighty calling and election 
for the wife of a Lincolnshire vicar, burdened with 
debts and no stranger to a prison. She made her 
children Methodists from the cradle. Life was ordered 
and shaped to obedience, prayerfulness, courtesy, 
diligence, punctuality in the schoolroom. Her sound 
judgement guided John Wesley in his inquiries at 
Oxford; her example taught him to care for the souls 
of his neighbours, and in some of the critical moments 
of the Evangelical Revival she proved a voice of God 
to her son. 

Methodism itself may fitly be described as a 
providential mosaic. It did not spring fully shaped 
and equipped for its mission from Wesley’s brain and 
heart. One step after another was taken with fear and 
trembling ; one institution after another was added as 
events arose which called it forth. Field-preaching, 
class-leaders, the financial organization, lay preachers, 
watchnight services—to each Wesley was gradually 
led by following the order of Providence. He did 
not seek out these things. The event revealed 
them. God forced them on his notice. His glory was 
that he was prompt to follow the path that opened. 
The human Providence, as embodied in the clear brain 
and big heart of John Wesley, is a study of never- 


Divine Providence 205 


failing interest. He was a creature of many prejudices 
born of his churchmanship, his education, and his 
temperament, but his prejudices always gave way to 
truth. His mind was a miracle of candour, and to his 
dying day he was a scholar in the school of Providence. 

No one man could fulfil all the designs of Providence 
even for Methodism. Charles Wesley is no less a 
providential man than his brother, The memorable 
Obituary in the Minutes of Conference for 1788, still 
fills us with astonishment. ‘His least praise was his 
talent for poetry.’ Yet that is the gift by which he 
has done so much to shape the religious life, not only 
of Methodism, but of the world. By the use he made 
of that talent he has become one of the spiritual forces, 
not of a century, but of all time. 

George Whitefield’s contribution to the Revival was 
that of the mighty orator who charmed the crowd and 
made all men flock to hear the new teaching. Nor 
were the early Methodist preachers and class-leaders 
less emphatically instruments of Providence. The 
world despised them as it did the Apostles, but the 
triumphs of grace which followed their labours 
showed that God had a mighty work to accomplish 
through these lowly instruments in all parts of the 
kingdom. 

Wesley saw that the Evangelical Revival was rich in 
promise. ‘I make no doubt that Methodism is designed 
by Providence to introduce the approaching millennium.’ 
That saying proved truer than he knew. Providence 


206 Man’s Partnership with 


lengthened his days in order that he might deepen his 
hold on England, and perfect his work. ; 

The great length of John Wesley’s life was of incalcul- 
able advantage to Methodism and to spiritual Christianity ; 
for it perpetuated the organization, and admitted of all 
possible experiments, the rejection of failures, and the im- 
provement of methods worthy of permanent adoption. This 
was done under an autocratic authority inspired by one 
desire, the promotion of Christ’s kingdom ; an authority 
which lost no influence by confessions of error or change, 
and was superior to opposition by reason of his financial 
grasp upon the property of the Connexion and his control 
of appointments.’ 

Some anxious years followed Wesley’s departure, 
- But the providence of God guided Methodism. There 
was much talk in those days of the ‘Old Plan, which 
some understood to mean adhesion to the Church of 
England. Pawson and Atmore replied, ‘Not so; our 
old plan has been to follow the openings of Providence, 
and to alter or amend as we saw it needful, in order to 
be more useful in the hand of God.’ 

That was the method pursued, and the results have 
been an extension of the sphere and influence of 
Methodism that is scarcely short of world-wide. Men 
who have discovered the path of Providence and 
followed its leading have never been lacking, Dr, Coke 
was a priceless gift of God to our opening mission-field, 
and such names as those of Jabez Bunting, Richard 
Watson, Adam Clarke, Robert Newton are memorable 


* Buckley, History of Methodists in the United States, p. 278, 


Divine Providence 207 


in Methodist history. Nor can we overlook more 
recent names—William Arthur, Hugh Price Hughes, 
Dr. Stephenson, Thomas Champness, Charles Garrett, 
and others. Time will reveal the full significance of 
these personal contributions to the plans of Providence. 
But we watch the work of God moving forward both at 
home and abroad, and we know that His, own gracious 
Providence is directing every form of service, not in 
Methodism alone, but in all branches of the Church of 
Christ. 

We dare cast no stone at the Church of England 
for its failure to use Wesley and Methodism. It would 
have been hard to embrace the vigorous young societies 
in the staid Mother Church, and it is not unfair to argue 
that Providence had other and wiser designs. Wesley, 
notwithstanding his protestations and prejudices, was 
led on by events till he took that step of ordain- 
ing Coke and others which Lord Mansfield rightly 
described as ‘separation’ from the Church of England. 
Methodism had grown too big for its cradle, and its 
mission could never have been accomplished had it been 
bound to the State Church. 

General Booth, one of its zealous local preachers, 
was lost to Wesleyan Methodism, as at a later date he ’ 
was lost to the New Connexion. There also we trace 
the Providence that guides the Church’s service. The 
worker needed a wider field, a freer hand than Metho- 
dism was then ready to offer him, and the result is 
one over which Christian men rejoice. In accepting 


208 Man’s Partnership with 


William Booth’s offer of marriage, Catherine Mumford 
says— 

I often anticipate the glorious employment of investi- 
cating the mysterious workings of Divine Providence. Oh, 
may it be our happy lot to assist each other in those 
heavenly researches in that pure, bright world above !° 

It seems a legitimate conclusion from the facts we 
have passed in review, that special forms of Church life 
are developed to meet the varying needs of succeeding 
generations. Puritanism rose when the spirit of liberty 
was firing the blood and brain of England; Methodism 
was born when the nation was making a great leap 
towards world-wide empire, and the common people 
were beginning to win prosperity and influence. In our 
own generation the social side of Church life has been 
developed in a manner unknown to our fathers. The 
care of orphan and destitute children, the effort to reach 
the degraded, the submerged, and the criminal classes, 
are among the chief glories of Christianity to-day. We 
have evidence at every stage of Church history of the 
guidance of Divine Providence. The Church has risen 
to its task as God opened its eyes and raised up His 
chosen vessels. 

There have been grievous failures. The story which 
Church history unfolds is more humbling to Christian 
men than the mistakes and tyranny of which civil 
history is full. The contrast between the divine and 
the human providence is painful. Pascal tells how 


1 Coates, The Prophet of the Poor, p. 29, 


Divine Providence 209 


Athanasius was condemned in Councils, and with the 
assent of all the bishops and the Pope. ‘Those who 
have both zeal and knowledge are excommunicated by 
the Church and yet save the Church.’ Lord Acton 
does not fail to point out this flaw in Calvin’s rule. 


The volume which cost Servetus his life was burnt with 
him; but, falling from his neck into the flames, it was 
snatched from the burning, and may still be seen in its 
singed condition, a ghastly memorial of Reformation ethics, 
in the National Library at Paris.1 


Yet despite these black pages the record is inspiring. 
The Church has been the foremost champion of the 
oppressed, the friend of the poor, the suffering, the 
degraded, the inspirer of a thousand noble efforts for 
the good of the world. Its stamp is on all life, 


There is not much good in modern civilization which is 
not either originated by Christianity or assimilated by it. 
Even its enemies owe most of their best things to it. Some 
truth there must be in this unique phenomenon: for if we 
found, after all, that the guiding Power has allowed the 
main development of religion in history to go on altogether 
mistaken lines, we might have to revise our assumption 
that such Power is morally trustworthy.? 


The power which the Church has shown ‘of constantly 
renewing her youth, reverting to the original type, and 
setting out on a new career, ? is sufficient evidence that 


* Acton, Modern History, p. 135. 
* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 287. 
* Gardner, The Growth of Christianity, p. 219, 


MS 


210 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


Divine Providence has guided and shaped all its 
history. That Providence is still at work. One aspect 
of European life to-day is specially encouraging in this 
regard. Russia, amid the revolutionary struggles of 
our day, has at last given liberty of worship to her 
people, and ‘so has made it possible for the gospel to 
melt the sluggish mass of a Greek Catholicism steeped 
in picture-worship: Here, if anywhere, a great hour 
has dawned.’? 


_ 1 Von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 344. 


138 


PROVIDENCE IN MISSIONARY 
SERVICE 


And Providence’s designing to place some in greater darkness 
with respect to religious knowledge, is no more a, reason why they 
should not endeavour to get out of that darkness and others to bring 
them out of it, than why ignorant and glow people in matters of other 
knowledge should not endeavour to learn, or should not be instructed. 
—Bortuer’s Analogy, Part II. ch. vi. 


The rule of Christ within His Church is seen by the means which 
He provides for its reinforcement and extension. These are two: 
Revivals and Missions.—Srewarp, Mediatorial Sovereignty, ii. 285. 


The glory of Christianity is not that it excludes, but that it 
comprehends; not that it came of a sudden into the world, or that it 
is given complete in a particular institution, or can be stated complete 
in a particular form of words; but that it is the expression of a 
common spirit which is gathering together all things in one. We 
cannot say of it, Lo, here it is, or lo, there: it is now, but was not then. 
We go backward, but we cannot reach its source; we look forward, 
but we cannot foresee its final power.—T, H, Green, The Witness of 
God, Two Lay Sermons, p. 25. 


CONTENTS 


Providence and the spread of the Christian religion 
The Atonement a world-comprising fact . ° . 
Missionary zeal of the Primitive Church 

Early missionary work in Britain and Ireland 


Missionaries sent from these islands $ 
Work of the Eastern Churches A 3 : : 
Lull and Xavier : . . ‘ : 
Erasmus as an advocate ‘of foreign missions 
Puritan Missions : ; ‘ 5 A 
Moravian Missions . - 


The Wesley family and eee 

The formation of the great Missionary Societicn 
The Bible Society founded ; : 

A great watershed . . : : 

Early missionary enthusiasts 

The dearth of missionaries . ; : : 
Melville Horne on Missions in 1794 A s 
George Burder on evangelizing the heathen, 1795 . 
Attitude of the East India Company 3 . : 
The tasks set before the Church *. : : 
Miss Bird on Japan . : : : : ° 
India as a mission field . ; / ~ 

Work in Asia and Africa . ‘ é A 
Missions a Providential School for Herein A ~ 
The zeal of York for Missions . s . : 7 
The Empire of Christ : : ° 


The contribution of each race to ARs olan of Providence 


The work of the Anglo-Saxon race . 3 2 J 


LITERATURE 


PAGE 


213 
213 


Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty; Von Schubert, Outlines of Church 
History ; Hunt, History of English Church; Huntington, Human Society: 
its Providential Structure, Relations, and Offices; Horne, Letters on 
Missions; Burder, Address . . . respecting an attempt to evangelize the 
heathen; Lucas, The Empire of Christ; Alston, The White Man’s Work 
in Asia and Africa; Bishop Montgomery, Mankind and the Church ; 


Bishop Mylne, Missions to Hindus. 


xX 


: LL the arrangements of Providence, as they 
A respect nations under “the dispensation of 
the fullness of times,” are subsidiary to the 
world-wide proclamation of Christianity.’! That state- 
ment brings out with increasing emphasis the Church’s 
call to missionary service. The spread of Christ’s 
kingdom is the clear and urgent duty of every 
disciple. Buddha is said to have nerved himself for 
his mission by the thought, ‘My law is a law of life 
for all.’ Gentleness and good-will were his contribution 
to the uplifting of the East, and we may be thankful 
that such ages had such a message and such a prophet. 
Christianity has nobler aims and richer stores of 
grace and truth. The Atonement is a world-comprising 
fact. This is well put by a profound thinker, 


All the phenomena of human nature are to be regarded 
in the closest connexion with it, and as exhibiting an ex- 
position of its influence upon the race. The aspect of the 
Atonement to our race is practically indicated by the course 
of Providence, from the beginning until now. ... All 
theories of Providence founded on abstract reasonings are 


* Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 72. 


214 Wan’s Partnership with 


illusory ; they are altogether inapplicable to an administra- 
tion founded on this principle, and consequently do the facts 
of Providence as they stand within it. On the theory of 
human existence which takes it in connexion with the 
Atonement, the race is entirely bound up with mediational 
purposes, and as a means only to the attainment of answer- 
able results.’ 


St. Paul still stands out as the greatest of all 
missionaries. His plans expand, his methods are 
perfected in actual contact with the needs of the world. 
Divine Providence leads him to his great field in 
Europe, and he learns to concentrate his whole strength 
on the cities where the victory was hardest to win, but 
from which whole provinces were leavened by the new 
religion. 

The first age of Christianity was a time of far- 
reaching missionary activity. About the middle of the 
second century Justin Martyr says— 

There is not one nation of men, whether Barbarians, or 
Greeks, or by whatsoever other name distinguished, whether 
of those who live in wagons, or of those who have no 
houses, or those pastoral people who dwell in tents, among 
whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the 


Father and Creator of all things through the name of the 
crucified Jesus.” 


When Christianity became a religio lictta under 
Constantine missionary enthusiasm ebbed. There was 
a readiness to compromise with error, and attention 


1 George Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty, ii. pp. 64-5. 
2 Dial. cum Trypho, 117 fin, 


Divine Providence 215 


was fixed on winning nations rather than on saving 
individuals. Arianism leavened Gothic Christianity. 

Some of the brightest scenes of early missionary 
activity were in these islands. -Providence was guiding 
the work at every step. Britain seems to have received 
its first gospel light from Gaul. 


Its coming may well have been a result of the perse- 
cution which, in 177, fell upon the Christians of Lyons 
and Vienne and the country round about them, for there 
are many traces of a close connexion between the Churches 
of Gaul and Britain, and some indications of a special 
connexion between Britain and the Churches of Lyons and 
Vienne.? 


We can trace the attendance of British bishops 
at the Council of Arles in 314, and of Rimini in 
359 «a.p2 Britons went on pilgrimage to Rome 
and Palestine, and had special links to St. Martin of 
Tours, of whom St. Patrick is said to have been a 
disciple. 

In Ireland Patrick established schools, trained 
evangelists, employed women, built churches, till the 
country became ‘the island of Saints.’ St. Finnian’s 
school at Clonard had three thousand students, and 
sent out the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland, of whom 
St. Columba was the most famous, In 563 he under- 
took his mission among the Scots of British Dalriada, 
where he founded the monastery of Iona, off the coast 


1 Hunt, History of English Church, 597-1066 a.p., p. 1. 
2 Thid., p. 2. 


216 Man’s Partnership with 


of Mull, This was not only a training-place for 
evangelists, but a centre for missionary operations 
among the heathen Picts, 

The ancient British Church was almost crushed by 
the Saxon invaders, though it held its ground in Wales 
and Cornwall, in Scotland and Ireland. The mission of 
Augustine brought gospel light into ‘what had become 
a heathen country.’ When the work spread through 
England missionaries were sent to the Teutonic tribes. 

In those early missionary activities we have an 


anticipation and a prophecy of the labours of our 
own times. 


The greatest glory of the English Church was the noble 
band of men and women, missionaries and teachers, saints 
and martyrs, who passed across the sea to the Continent in 
its darkest hour, carrying with them the light of learning 
and the hope of the gospel. The English were already 
strong enough to give of their best that missions and 
schools might be planted among the Germans, Franks, and 
Saxons. By missions, as well as by pilgrimages, an outlet 
was afforded for their roving and adventurous spirits, no 
longer bent on foray, but on the preaching of the gospel 


of enlightenment and peace; and the stream of enthusiasts 
was ever increasing.! 


Industrial and agricultural settlements sprang up 
round the mission stations ; Scripture study and teaching 
were promoted by the monasteries. Boniface, a native 


of Crediton, became the Apostle of Germany. He cut 
down the Sacred Oak of Thor at Geismar in the presence 


1 Dale, National Life, p. 85. 


—— es 
ol ti ee ee ae 


~ 


gg Oe eS se tie 


mo) 


ee ee ee ee a ee 


a a Ee 


ye 


te mah 


Divine Providence 217 


of a crowd of heathen, and gradually reformed the 
Church in Thuringia, ‘where the people, though 
nominally Christian, had fallen into evil practices.’ 
Men and women came over from England to help him 
in his mission. 

The British and Irish missionaries certainly surpassed 
Boniface in freedom of spirit and purity of Christian 
knowledge; but Rome, by its superior organization, 
triumphed in the end, and though it introduced new and 
unscriptural elements into the Church, it helped at the 
same time to consolidate its outward framework against 
the assaults of Paganism.1 


Ignorance and superstition gradually crept in, till 
at the beginning of the eleventh century Christendom 
reached its lowest point in spirituality and morality. 

The Eastern Churches were at work in Asia, and 
the Nestorians were winning converts in China and 
Tartary. They had flourishing missions in Turkestan, 
Kashgar, and other parts of Central Asia, but these 
were largely destroyed by the Turks and Tartars in the 
fourteenth century. Christianity was almost rooted 
out of Asia. 

Raymund Lull, born in Majorca in 1236, stands 
out as a true missionary in the Middle Ages. He has 
been described as ‘a fanatic, both spiritually and intel- 
lectually, * but his zeal for the conversion of the 
Mohammedans and his effort to enlist the help of the 


1 Neander, Church History. 
* Yon Schubert, Outlines of Church History, p. 210. 


218 Man’s Partnership with 


priests and princes of Europe for that missionary work 
in which he at last won the crown of martyrdom, is a 
thrilling story of Christian heroism. 

Xavier's devotion and enterprise in the work of 
Christian missions have been recognized by all Churches, 
but he was content with superficial results. Bishop 
Cotton describes his methods as ‘utterly wrong, and 
the results in India and Ceylon most deplorable.’ The 
Jesuit missions are a pitiful story of ‘unholy accommo- 
dation of Christian truth and observances to heathenish 
superstitions and customs’; of frightful tortures inflicted — 
on heathen and heretics, and of political intrigue. 

The Reformation age had no zeal for missions. The 
fight with Popery absorbed the energies of Luther and 
his helpers. But one eloquent advocate called the 
Church to think of the ground ‘ where the seed of the 
gospel has never yet been sown, or where there is a 
greater crop of tares than of wheat!’ 


Europe is the smallest quarter of the globe. What, I ask, 
do we now possess in Asia, which is the largest continent ? 
In Africa what have we? ‘There are surely in these vast 
tracts barbarous and simple tribes who could easily be 
attracted to Christ if we sent men among them to sow the 
good seed... . Bestir yourselves, then, ye heroic and 
illustrious leaders of the army of Christ. . . . Addresg your- 
selves with fearless minds to such a glorious work. . . . Ibig 
a hard work I call you to, but it is the noblest and highest 
of all. Would that God had accounted me worthy to die 
in so holy a work ! 3 


* Erasmus, Ecclesiasticae, chap. x. 


Divine Providence 219 


Erasmus died the year after his enlightened book 
on the art of preaching was given to the world, and the 
seed which he scattered fell on stony ground. 

The Puritans of Massachusetts had on their seal in 
1628 an Indian with a scroll between his lips: ‘Come 
over and help us.’ In 1644 a petition was presented 
to the Long Parliament praying that some steps might 
be taken to spread the gospel in America and the West 
Indies. This led to the formation of the ‘Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, 
Cromwell heartily supported the effort, and a collection 
made throughout England yielded £12,000. This 
Society, when reconstituted after the Restoration, had 
John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, as its first 
missionary. His was ‘the first mission to the heathen 
in the Evangelical Church conducted in an evangelical 
spirit and blessed with lasting results.’ } 

Count Zinzendorf, as a boy of fifteen, had been 
interested in the Danish mission at Tranquebar. He 
formed his ‘Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed,’ and 
entered into a covenant with a friend to establish 
missions. That design was carried out in 1732, when 
the first Moravian missionary sailed for St. Thomas in 
the West Indies. No Church has such a record of mis- 
sionary devotion and sacrifice. One Moravian in every 
sixty is a missionary; their churches on the mission- 
field are three times as large as those at home. Herrn- 
hut itself has sent out more than 2,000 missionaries, 


1 Warneck. 


220 Man’s Partnership with 


who have shown a genius for reaching the lowest 
races, and have set an example to Christendom in their 
zeal on behalf of the degraded and helpless. The 
Providence that guides the missionary service of the 
Church finds striking illustration in the story of the 
Moravian Church. Zinzendorf’s devotion leavened 
the whole community, and has contributed largely to 
the spread of the gospel in heathen lands. 

In 1701, two years before Wesley was born, the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was founded 
through the zeal of Dr. Thomas Bray. Its operations 
were chiefly confined to our colonies and dependencies, 
but good work was done among the Indians and 
negroes. David Brainerd, who was employed by a 
Scotch association, laboured among the Delaware tribe 
from 1743-9 with great success, and his biography by 
Jonathan Edwards did much to kindle the flame of 
missionary devotion after his death. 

Frederick IV of Denmark sent Ziegenbalg and 
Plutscho to India at his own expense, and their work 
spread from the Danish settlement of Tranquebar over 
the whole Tamil country. Their story greatly stirred 
Susanna Wesley. Her daughter Emily found the 
narrative in her father’s study. Mrs. Wesley says— 


I was never, I think, more affected with anything than 
with the relation of their travels, and was exceedingly 
pleased with the noble design they were engaged in. Their 
labours refreshed my soul beyond measure, and I could 
not forbear spending good part of that evening in praising 


} 


Divine Providence 221 


and adoring the divine goodness for inspiring those good 
men with such an ardent zeal for His glory, that they were 
willing to hazard their lives and all that is esteemed dear 
to men in this world, to advance the honour of their 
Master, Jesus. 


For several days she could think or speak of little 
else, It led her to ask what more she could do herself. 
Her zeal in her famous Rectory Services was greatly 
quickened, and she set apart some time each evening 
to talk to ‘each child by itself, on something that relates 
to its principal concerns.’ 

John Wesley went to Georgia with the hope that 
his way might be opened to labour among the Indians, 
but Providence had other service for him as the Apostle 
of England. His energies were soon absorbed in that 
task. Dr. Coke cast in his lot with Wesley in 17 rile. 
and before long was revolving plans for missions to the 
heathen. In 1786 a series of gales drove the vessel in 
which he had embarked for Nova Scotia to Antigua, 
where he found that Methodism had already gained a 
firm hold on the negroes. Providence thus opened 
before Coke his path of service, and he was not 
slow to follow it. The S.P.G. had then one negro 
clergyman at work in West Africa, and the S.P.CK. 
had gained great hold of the Tamils of South India, by 
its German Lutheran agents, whom it subsidized and in 
great part directed. ‘That was all.’ 

The new spiritual life which the Evangelical Revival 
brought to this country was a providential preparation 


ve 


—e 
on 


222 Man’s Partnership with 


for missionary service. At the beginning of the 
eighteenth century the Church of England was cold 
and listless. ‘Nonconformity was living a life of 
decorous dullness, producing little or no effect upon 
the religious experience of the age.’ Before the century 
closed a great awakening had taken place. 


The enormous and energetic Methodist Societies had 
sprung into vigorous life, every other section of the Non- 
conformist Church had been stimulated into energetic action, 
the Church of England had been shaken out of its spiritual 
torpor, and upon the hearts of all evangelical Christians 
had been laid the burden of the world’s sin and sorrow and 
needs in a way quite new in English history. 


A few dates speak volumes. Methodist missions 
began in 1786. The Baptist Missionary Society was 
founded in 1792, the London Missionary Society in 
1795, the Church Missionary Society in 1799, the 
Religious Tract Society in 1799, The example thus 
set led largely to the formation of the Evangelical 
Missionary Society at Basle in 1815. 

Whilst the Missionary Societies were struggling 
into existence their greatest ally was born in London 
in 1804. Its first President, Lord Teignmouth, called 
the Bible Society ‘a new constellation,’ which, 
under the favour of Providence, had risen to illuminate the 
darkness of the moral world. . . . Mysterious and often 


incomprehensible as the ways of Providence are to our 
understandings, the hand of God is so plainly revealed in 


* Lovett, History of the London Missionary Society, i, 8. 


ee eee 


De a ge Png LD UNE re ee Oe a ae 


el 


Pn ie hoe 


SO ee Se ae a alte iS ~ 


Fi 


MC) 9 ee ae 


a 
~- ae 


Divine Providence 223 


blessing the proceedings of the Society, that it is scarcely 
invisible to blindness itself—to Him be the praise and the 
glory.? 


No such cluster of mighty missionary agencies has 
ever arisen in so short a period. Those closing years 
of the eighteenth century formed a watershed from 
which the river of life began to flow forth to the 
heathen world. It has been pronounced to be ‘un- 
questionable that when the spirit of missions broke 
forth in Protestant England, the religion of England 
was saved from impending extinction.’ ? 

But was it so? Was not the missionary activity 
the culmination of forces set at work by the Evangelical 
Revival? That zeal for the salvation of the heathen 
fanned a flame which was already kindled, and 
produced a new array of appeals and arguments to 
rebuke neglect of the gospel in lands that had long 
walked in its light. Dr. Coke was the prince of 
missionary enthusiasts. The pure flame of love burned 
in his breast when it had scarcely warmed the hearts 
of his countrymen. He is not only the founder of 
Methodist missions, His influence can be traced in 
William Carey’s classic Inquiry into the Obligations of 
Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen, 
which was published in 1792, the. year before he sailed 
for India. Coke was also in close communion with the 


! Morris, Governors-General of India, pp. 92-3. 
? Huntington, Human Society, p. 50, 


224 Man’s Partnership with 


chief men of ‘The Clapham Sect,’ who helped him with 
advice and money. 

Coke himself sailed for Ceylon with a party of six 
missionaries and two missionaries’ wives on December 30, 
1813, and died the following May in the Indian Ocean. 
That great bereavement set the providential crown on 
his apostleship. He left the Ceylon Mission as a legacy 
to Methodism, which was thus baptized for the dead. 

We clearly trace the hand of Divine Providence in 
these events. The hour had come when a sustained 
attempt must be made by all Christian men to win the 
world for Christ. Yet even at the end of the eighteenth 
century English Churches were slow to discern the 
purpose of Providence. One noble enthusiast was set on 
fire. David Brainerd’s Life stirred in Henry Martyn the 
desire to become a missionary to India. When that 
door was barred, he went out, in 1805, as a chaplain of 
the Kast India Company. There was great dearth of 
labourers. The Church Missionary Society’s Report 
for 1802 says that they had made ‘ earnest applications 
to a very numerous body of clergymen in almost every 
part of the kingdom’; and hoped that ‘ several persons 
in whose piety, zeal, and prudence the Committee 
might confide would ere this have offered themselves 
to labour among the heathen. Their hope, however, 
has been disappointed.’ They mourned ‘the evident 
want of that high zeal which animated the apostles and 
primitive Christians.’ In despair they turned to the 
Continent. Two men were secured from the Berlin 


Divine Providence 225 


seminary, and sailed for Sierra Leone in the beginning 
of 1804. It was not till 1813 that the Society’s first 
English missionaries were ordained. 

A contemporary picture of this epoch in. our 
missionary history is given by the Rev. Melville 
Horne, who had been chaplain of Sierra Leone. 


I shall be told that the Church of England has long 
established a Society for Foreign Missions ; that the Unitas 
Fratrum have done worthily in the cause; that the Wesleyan 
Methodists have had, of late years, great success in the 
West India islands; that the Particular Baptists have taken 
up the matter with spirit ; that Eliot, Brainard, and others 
have acquired immortality by their labours among the North 
American Indians; that the Danes and Hollanders have 
their Missions in the East; and that the Jesuits, and other 
religious Orders of the Roman Communion, have shed much 
blood for Christ, in South America, China, and Japan. 


Mr. Horne is not slow to recognize the zeal of one 
devoted communion. ‘The Moravian Brethren,’ he 
says, ‘have been among us, what the Jesuits were in 
the Roman Church. They have laboured, and suffered, 
and effected more than all of us.’* Nor does he fail to 
pay tribute to workers nearer akin to his own com- 
munion. 


The Methodists have lately entered upon this career, and 
bid fair to run it with the same success. . . . The zeal of the 
Moravian is calm, steady, persevering. . . . The zeal of the 


1 Letters on Missions, addressed to the Protestant Ministers of the 
British Churches (1794), p. 24. 
2 Thid., p. 34. 


226 Man’s Partnership with 


Methodist blazes, and burns everything before it. He is 
open, active, bold, and ardent. He sees himself in a pushing 
world, and pushes with the foremost. He lives in action ; 
and is dejected and uncomfortable if he wants active em- 
ployment. The Methodists are known chiefly for what they 
have done at home; the Moravians for what they have 
done abroad. 


The critic is alive both to the strength and what he 
deems the weakness of our fathers. 


Itinerancy is the palladium of Methodism. Fixing onsome 
favourable post, they revolve in a circle round it, perpetually 
making excursions in the neighbouring country, and multi- 
plying their circuits and their preachers in proportion to 
their success. If they do not split of themselves, there is 
hardly anything in the missionary line which they may not 
attempt and succeed in. But they will not, I fear, be able 
to steer clear of persecution, as the Moravians have done ; 
nor do I conceive that they have patience and perseverance 
for a Greenland mission. A Methodist preacher would 
think his life thrown away in spending twenty or thirty 
years upon a few converts. And, I flatter myself, the 
Methodists are too well acquainted with themselves, to 
engage in such undertakings, while so many large and 
populous kingdoms are accessible to their labours.? 


That criticism sounds strange in our ears to-day. 
3ut Mr. Horne scarcely realized the variety of gifts 
needed for the world’s evangelization, or the way in 
which Divine Providence enlists all manuer of workers 

1 Letters on Missions, addreesed to the Protestant Ministers of the 


British Churches (1794), p. 36 
* Tbid., p. 37. 


Divine Providence 227 


in the great service. He is sorely troubled by the lack 
of zeal in the churches, Heathenism, he says, is not 


to be subdued by a few fair-weather soldiers, accompanied 
by delicate women and children, educated in fashionable 
accomplishments, and accustomed to all the delicacies of 
life; who are absolutely incapable of exposing themselves 
to sun, or wind, or rain, or of exercising those charities 
which were once the ornament and praise of Christian 
matrons. I fear, I fear greatly, that I write to the winds, 
and that neither Christian Ministers, nor their wives, have 
plety enough for this engagement,! &c. 


Yet, he adds— 


it seems as if the providence of God had kept alive some 
sense of duty, and some examples of zeal, both among laity 
and clergy, to be a testimony against us, and to hold us up 
to infamy to future generations. ... The Sierra Leone 
chaplainship went a-begging pretty far before it fell into 
the hands of my colleague and myself; and now that we 
have declined it, it lies neglected, as no man thinks it 
worth his while to pick it up... . That our brethren 
of the various denominations of English Dissenters have 
any cause to rejoice over us in this respect is more than 
I know. Except the Reverend Mr. Carey and a friend 
who accompanies him, I am not informed of any of their 
ministers who are engaged in Missions. . . . The Reverend 
Dr. Coke has of late years done something in this way in 
our West India Islands, and might have done much more, 
had the Methodist Preachers, as a body, given him that un- 
equivocal support to which his zeal in such a cause should 
entitle him. Hitherto those Missions may be considered 


* Letters on Missions, addressed to the Protestant Ministers of the 
British Churches (1794), p. 134. 


228 Man’s Partnership with 


as fis Missions, rather than those of the Methodists. 
I am, however, happy to be informed that his brethren 
begin to enter more heartily into the spirit of Missions, 
and I flatter myself they will now embark in them with 
all their soul, and all their strength. 


Mr. Horne had earned a right to speak on the 
subject. He had gone to Sierra Leone with the hope. 
of doing something towards the establishment of a 
mission to the natives. After a residence of fourteen 
months he returned to England from a conviction that 
he could not effect his purpose. Nor was he willing 
to expose his delicate wife and young children to the 
unhealthy climate. He adds a forecast which the 
history of West African Missions has abundantly 
justified. 


I am fully of opinion that Missions would succeed in those 
parts, if they were taken up with proper spirit, and con- 
ducted in a proper manner. The natives are friendly and 
tractable, and appear desirous of information in religion as 
well as in letters. 


Another book appeared the year after Mr. Horne’s 
appeal. When the London Missionary Society was 
formed in 1795, the Rev. George Burder of Coventry 
issued An Address to the serious and zealous Professors 
of the Gospel, of every denomination, respecting an 
attempt to evangelize the heathen. ‘During the last 
fifty years,’ he says, ‘there has been a great revival of 


1 Letters on Missions, addressed to the Protestant Ministers of the 
British Churches (1794), pp. 135-6. 


Divine Providence 229 


true religion among ourselves. Then he refers to the 
growing zeal for missions. 


Among the generous designs of lively Christians, we 
rejoice to hear that more than a few, unacquainted with 
each other’s wishes, have, in different places, expressed most 
vehement desires to do something for the poor heathen ; 
and, without any present specific plan of operation in view, 
have actually begun to lay by a little money, that they may 
be ready to contribute to so glorious a work as soon as ever 
Providence may favour them with an opportunity. 


Mr. Burder gives a glimpse of the providential 
means which had led to this result. 


Modern discoveries in geography. have perhaps contributed 
to enlarge the desires of Christians in this respect. Captain 
Cook and others have traversed the globe, almost from pole 
to pole, and have presented to us, as it were, a new world, 
a world of islands in the vast Pacific Ocean—some of 
them as promising in the disposition of the people as in the 
appearance of the country. 


Providence was never more manifestly at work than 
— in this outburst of missionary enterprise. A new era was 
dawning on the world. Manufactures were transformed 
by an amazing series of Inventions. Steam was reducing 
distances and bridging lands long separated by a great 
gulf. The wonders of the telegraph and the modern 
developments of electricity were in store. Commerce 
was binding together the nations and making them 
share each other’s prosperity. Yet Christian men were 
strangely blind to the providential signs of the times. 


230 Man’s Partnership with 


The East. India Company did its utmost to prevent 
Christian missions. Doors were scrupulously closed 
against those who might disturb the slumber of 
Hinduism. The East India Company was eighty years 
in India before a Christian church was built! Yet not 
even the mighty Company could long stem the tide. 
One of its own magnates, Charles Grant, was a chief 
instrument in opening up India to the gospel. He 
asked the 8.P.C.K. to send out a clergyman to Calcutta, 
and offered to pay him £360 a year out of his own 
pocket. Dr. George Smith says— 


A friend of Schwartz, the great missionary, he helped 
Carey to Serampore, he sent out the Evangelical chaplains 
through Simeon, he founded Haileybury College, he was 
the chief agent [one of the chief agents is more correct] in 
the institution of the Church Missionary and Bible Societies, 
he fought for the freedom of the African slave as wisely as 
for the enlightenment of the caste-bound Hindu. He was 
the authority from whom Wilberforce derived at once the 
impulse and the knowledge which gained the first battle 
for toleration in the Hon. East India Company’s charters 
of 1793 and 1818. Above all, Charles Grant wrote in 
1792 the noblest treatise on the Asiatic subjects of Great 
Britain and the means of improving their moral condition, 
which the English language has ever yet seen. 


There was many a hard struggle before India was 
opened to the gospel. Grant’s scheme for a mission in 
* History of Church Missionary Society, i. 52. 


2 Tbid., i. 53. 
3 Ibid., i. 55. 


Divine Providence 231 


Bengal was submitted in 1786 to the Archbishop of 
Canterbury and the Bishop of London, who ‘both 
effectually poured cold water on it.’ In 1793 Wilber- 
force, moved by Grant, asked Parliament, in renewing 
the East India Company’s Charter, to add clauses 
granting facilities for missions in India. But the direc- 
tors took fright. The Court of Governors in May, 1793, 
expressed their opinion ‘ that the conversion of 50,000 
or 100,000 natives of any degree of character would be 
the most serious disaster that could happen, and they 
thanked God that it was impracticable.’ 

They subsidized heathenism lavishly, took the great 
temple of Kalighat under their special care, provided 
guards of honour, and fired salutes when idols were 
carried in procession. 


But they did their best to keep Christian missionaries 
out of the country. This attitude was only changed slowly 
and by compulsion, and was only finally abandoned by the 
force of public opinion after the Charter was renewed in 
18338." 


Wilberforce wrote in 1793: 


All my clauses were struck out last night, and our 
territories in Hindostan, twenty millions of people included, 
are left in the undisturbed and peaceable possession, and 
comimitied to the providential protection of —‘ Brama.’ 


The same year Lord Macartney, in his embassy to 
China, stated, ‘The English never attempt to disturb 


1 British Foreign Missions, p. 21. 


232 Man’s Partnership with 


or dispute the worship or tenets of others; they come 
to China with no such views; they have no priests 
or chaplains with them, as have other European 
nations.’ 

Carey had to place his mission under the protection of 
the Danish flag in consequence of the hostility of the 
Hast India Company; and Dr. Forsyth, of the London 
Missionary Society, had to live in the Dutch settlement 
at Chinsurah, about twenty miles from Calcutta, though 
he afterwards extended his work to that city! Sydney 
Smith was a stout opponent of missions to India. He 
thought that in civilization and morals the natives com- 
pared favourably with Europeans. He doubted whether 
their conversion would ever be more than nominal. Nor 
had he any reliance on the discretion of the missionary 
societies. 

The story of this blindness is painful reading for us 
Who see that India had come under the power of 
England in order that it might be opened to the 
influence of the gospel; but God’s providence guided 
the Church to a new conception of its duty, and the 
condition of things to-day astonishes us. The world 
has become accessible to Christian influence and teach- 
ing in a way that our fathers would have regarded ag 
a sheer impossibility. David Livingstone opened the — 
heart of Africa to the gospel. After long hesitation 
and opposition, China, Japan, and Korea have thrown 
wide their doors to Western influence, 

* British Foreign Missions, p. 14. 


Divine Providence 233 


The ceaseless enterprise of the missionary spirits of the 
Church, which has continually anticipated trade and out- 
run the flag and found admittance through open door after 
door which had previously been closed, has made the past 
sixty years a period of remarkable development and of ever- 
erowing fruitfulness in British missions to the heathen.’ 


The tasks before the Church of Christ on the mission- 
field to-day call for its ripest wisdom and its loftiest 
devotion. Providence is continually opening new 
doors for the evangelization of the world. Oppor- 
tunities greater than any over which the heroes of the 
past rejoiced are ours. Japan has come on to the 
horizon of the West almost within a lifetime. Miss 
Bird’s impressions of that country are of singular 
interest. She found that Dr. Hepburn, one of the 
oldest foreign residents in Yokohama, was by no means 
enthusiastic about the Japanese, or sanguine regarding 
their future in any respect, and evidently thought them 
deficient in solidity.2 Miss Bird herself says ‘the 
Japanese standard of foundational morality is very 
low, and life is neither truthful nor pure.’ ? 

A clever Japanese writer urges that the charges 
of fickleness and frivolity against his nation are ‘ easily 
explained as but the attendant phenomena of the 
transitory age from which we are just emerging.’ * 
‘Upon Europe and America the full power of our 

1 British Foreign Missions, p. 25. 
2 Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, i. 44. 


3 Tbid., p. 187. 
4 The Japanese Spirit, p. 131, 


234 Man's Partnership with 


mental searchlight is now playing, in quest of those 
new ideas for future development from which we have 
been accustomed to draw mainly on China and India,’! 
‘For the average mind of the educated Japanese some- 
thing like modern scientific agnosticism, with a strong 
tendency towards the materialistic monism of recent 
times, is just what pleases and satisfies it most,’ 2 

Here is a wonderful nation opened to the civilization 
of the Western world. She is not merely a learner, 
she is also a teacher. Her prowess in war has amazed 
the world, but ‘it is impossible that the new-born 
energy of Japan should never have anything better to 
teach us than the mere craft of war’3 Our allies of 
the Hast have earned a right to be treated as equals, 
One who has worked amongst them says— 

The time is past in which men could be sent to teach 
Japanese people what the West thought good for them, and 
now they in their turn employ and resort to teachers just 


so far as they find they can gain from them what they 
really value and need.4 


We are facing questions of unspeakable importance, 


Hitherto, in spite of its Hastern origin, the triumphs of 
the Christian religion have been limited to the West. Is 
it not possible that the falling off of mediaeval dogma, in 
which so many fearful Christians at home see so much 
danger to the faith, may be simply the prelude to a new 


+ The Japanese Spirit, pp. 44-5. 

? Thid., p. 94. 

* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 237. 

* The Bishop of South Tokyo, Guardian, J uly 24, 1907. 


Divine Providence 238 


revival, which will sweep away the Occidental boundaries 
that have hitherto confined the creed which Christ taught ? + 


This is frankly admitted by our wisest missionaries. 


India will yet have a great influence on Christianity. 
The people of that land, released from the throttling grip of 
Vedantism, will elucidate and emphasize some aspects of 
Christ’s teaching which have not yet made their due appeal 
to the people of the West; so that we, without them, 
cannot be made perfect.? 


The difficulties of missionary work in India are 
powerfully set forth by Mr. Meredith Townsend. 


Christianity in a new people must develop civilization 
for itself, not be smothered by it, still less be exhausted in 
the impossible effort to accrete to itself a civilization from 
the outside. Natives of India, when they are Christians, 
will be and ought to be Asiatic still—that is, as unlike 
English rectors or English Dissenting ministers as it is 
possible for men of the same creed to be; and the effort to 
squeeze them into those moulds not only wastes power, but 
destroys the vitality of the original material. 


In India and China Christian missions are faced by 
a civilization that is older than their own. ‘ When our 
forefathers were pure barbarians, his (the Hindu’s) 
were in the highest stage of civilization.’* The lifting 
up of the lower races is attended with other problems 
not less difficult. We may be in danger of imposing 
1 Spectator, January 27, 1906. 
2 Haigh’s Some Leading Ideas of Hinduism, p. 7. 


% Asia and Europe, p. 81. See pp. 67-81. 
4 The Empire of Christ, p. 12. 


236 Man’s Partnership with 


our own views upon them in matters that are non- 
essential and seeking to bring them under a yoke of 
Western customs which they are not able to bear. 
Providence here teaches us to act with sympathy and 
with caution. There has sometimes been a danger lest 
Christianity should be ‘mainly a code of moral pro- 
hibitions’ Mr. Alston, in his thoughtful essay on 
The White Man’s -Work in Asia and Africa, shows 
that to encourage the growth of that fuller and more 
abundant life which Christianity came to bring, we need 
‘visible, tangible institutions to which the nascent 
civilization may attach itself as it develops’! Here ig 
the argument for educational work and industrial 
training. Missionary work is bound to supply ‘a suit- 
able environment, intellectual and moral, for the 
growing mind, Without this, even the picked spirits 
can progress but feebly, and in a maimed, uncertain 
fashion,’ ? . 

Spiritual forces, however high, require the aid of 
material instruments. And these instruments, in the shape 
of press and pulpit, schools and laws, police and roads, to 
strengthen and encourage developing aspirations and to 


retard any temporary retrogression, it is the happy privilege 
of the strong peoples to bestow for the benefit of the weak,.3 


Missionaries, as the agents of a new civilization as 
well as a new religion, need to be the best trained and 
most catholic-spirited workers of the Church. It igs 


 Alston’s White Man’s Work, p. 67. 
? Thid., p. 69. > Tbid., p. 70. 


Divine Providence 237 


comparatively easy to destroy the institutions of 
heathenism and to sap its faith in its gods. But there 
is a danger lest a nation should thus lose its moorings 
and be plunged into atheism, ‘ Evolution rather than 
revolution should be the watchword of Christianity, as 
indeed it already is among the more broad-minded of 
Christian missionaries.’ } 

Some of the tasks assigned the Church of Christ 
have been nobly finished, but Foreign Missions stand 
out as the new providential school for heroism. The 
sphere in which the Elizabethan sailors and discoverers 
won lasting glory for England was narrow compared 
with this moral and spiritual conquest of the world. 
Opportunities for chivalry, for self-sacrifice, openings 
for adventure and enterprise, are here of which they 
never dreamed. We have ourselves much to learn. 
‘In the school of Protestant Christianity [it has been 
said| none of us has acquired the breadth of view 
necessary for the just estimation of alien ideals of 


ae 


life4 

We are wrestling with problems on which more 
hinges than we yet understand. What form is the 
Christianity of these races to assume? How far 
must Western notions and customs be accepted by 
our converts? Shall we seek to impart ‘the distinctively 
Teutonic or the distinctively Christian elements to the 
less developed nations’ ?3 


1 Alston’s White Man’s Work, p. 73. 
2 Thid., p. 36, 3 Ibid., p. 26, 


238 Man’s Partnership with 


Missions are educative for the Church at home. We 
are learning to respect the gifts of other races, to under- 
stand that they have their providential sphere as well 
as ourselves. ‘There are regions where the white man 
finds himself less fitted for service than the coloured 
race. ‘That is their sphere; our task is to help them to 
make the highest use of their providential position. 
They have much to teach us, and we must welcome 
every good thing they can give us, every hint for better — 
service. We are scholars in the same school of Divine 
Providence, and must cherish ‘a reasonable belief in 
the potential equality of all mankind as sharing alike 
in a capacity for unlimited development.’ ! 

A clear grasp of that fact will save us from any lack 
of sympathy or tact. There will be no assumption of 
Superiority, no overbearing temper. We shall recom- 
mend the gospel by our readiness to recognize the good 
that is in others, and our eagerness to share our best 
gifts of civilization and religion with the world. Every- 
thing is ready for the supreme conquest. The Bible 
speaks to all the great races in their own tongue; 
modes of communication have been revolutionized, the ~ 
brotherhood of man is acknowledged. A thousand 
indications point to the possibility of leavening the life 
of all nations with gospel truth. The Church at home 
has a glorious field for enterprise, for generosity, for 
self-sacrifice. She will have to give her best to the 
world if it is to be won for Christ. Her sons and 

Alston, White Man’s Work, p. 79. 


Divine Providence 239 


daughters, the most gifted and richly endowed of these, 
are wanted; and no field of labour which they can 
enter has such rich rewards to offer, such delights and 
inspirations, as those which spring from enlisting the 
best gifts of other nations for truth and purity and 
Christ. 

York has its own page in the providential history 
of missions. David Hill embodied in himself the 
missionary devotion and enthusiasm for which the city 
has long been famous. Two of his uncles were engaged 
in missionary work. Richard Burdsall Lyth is reckoned 
among the heroes of Fiji, and his wife, as devoted as 
her husband, pleaded with the redoubtable Thakombau 
to spare some women from the cannibal ovens. As a 
youth David Hill’s father gave £70, earned by over- 
time, to foreign missions. His boys became enthusiastic 
collectors for that cause. Kneeling at the communion 
rail in Centenary Chapel a month after his mother’s 
death, the future missionary found peace with God. In 
the same chapel he was ordained for his life-work on 
October 25, 1864, with William Scarborough. In 
China he proved himself a true apostle. St. Francis of 
Assisi was not more richly baptized into the spirit of 
love and of self-sacrifice than this missionary son of 
York. His visits to England were as influential in 
promoting his life-work as his toil abroad. When he 
came back in 1881 he sought to enlist the most devoted 
young Methodists in this service, and ‘almost all the 
recruits to Central China for the next ten years were 


240 Man’s Partnership with 


due directly or indirectly to his personal advocacy 
during this visit.’! Dr. Sydney Hodge, one of the 
noblest of medical missionaries, went out to China in 


response to his appeal.” 
In our age Christian men have gained 


an altered conception of God’s providential dealing with 
the world. We have come to recognize that salvation is 
a much greater and more far-reaching purpose on the part 
of God than our fathers conceived it to be, and that 
throughout the whole family of man there has been a vast 
preparation for this great purpose of the ages. ~ 


Each race may be an instrument of Providence 
for enriching the religious thought and life of the 
world. Christianity is as yet an exotic in India, and 
until it has become naturalized, its real work has not 
begun. There is a rich recompense in store for us here. 


The Hindu religious nature is a veritable Nile, which 
waits only for the skill which can direct and the energy 
which can utilize, to transform India into the richest. 
province of the Empire of Christ.‘ 


Seven bishops have recently set themselves to describe 
the contribution which the various peoples of China, 
Japan, India, Islam, the Pacific, and the Negro race may 
be expected to make to the perfect Church of the future. 
Bishop Montgomery, who edits the volume, speaks of 


1 Dr. Barber, David Hill, p. 68. 

2 Thid., p. 92. 

3 Lucas, The Empire of Christ, p. 6. 
* Tbid., p. 148. 


Divine Providence 241 


the company as the seven dreamers who have glorious 
visions of the coming days of grace and blessing. 
‘Each race is called to bring its own contribution and 
occupy the place reserved from the beginning for it 
which no one else can fill.’? 

The Church is learning that Divine Providence 
needs leaders to open the way and wise organization to 
save the infant Church on the mission-field from bein g 
tainted with the old evils, and to train them into a 
mighty army for God, Great pioneers stamp their own 
personality on a mission; but system is needed to 
conserve the results and make them a foundation for 
wider influence.2 

Professor von Schubert closes his Outlines of Church 
_ fistory with a noble passage in which he views all 
Christian communities as ‘proof of the power and 
wealth of the common source, the historical figure of 
Christ.’ The Church is on its way to victory over 
Mohammed and Buddha as it overcame Zeus and 
Woden. Japan must decide which path it will take, 


The result of a ‘Missionary century’ will soon be 
twelve million Christians in pagan lands, a much greater 
proportion of whom have been won in the last quarter 
than in the first three put together. To-day there is no 
longer any Church or any party which refuses to undertake 
this, the greatest of all tasks, the mission to the world. . . . 
The faith is sure of victory in the future, for we see 
the lines of Church History converging in a time when 

1 Mankind and the Church, p. xii. 
* See Bishop Mylne, Missions to Hindus, pp. 78-83. 
R 


242 Wlan’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


all peoples ‘hear His voice,’ and the religion of humanity 
has measured the compass of the earth.’ 

The Anglo-Saxon race has in this respect obeyed 
the call of Divine Providence as no other race has done. 
The missionary contributions for Christendom in 1907 
from Protestant bodies were £4,679,100, of which 
British and American societies raised £3,920,764; 
Germany gave £351,098. The British and American 
societies supported 14,083 missionaries and mission- 
aries’ wives, Germany 2,095. Their adherents were 
2,684,565; those of German societies 240,883. These 
figures show how Providence has laid the missionary 


cause on the conscience and heart of the Anglo-Saxon 


race, and given it the chief share in the regeneration of 
the world. We have seen how great are the difficulties 
of the task, how complicated its problems, what strain 
it involves on the courage, the sacrifice, the resources of 
the Human Providence as represented by the missionary 
churches. But we have also seen that this is a field 
where every grace of Christian character may be 
developed, where new revelations of the will of God 


concerning man may be gained, and where our own | 


religion may be given back to us enriched by contribu- 
tions made to it by the friends and disciples of our 
Master among ‘all nations, and kindreds, and people, 
and tongues.’ 


1 Outlines of Church History, pp. 346-7. 


XI 


PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS A 
BOOK OF PROVIDENCE 


O Thou Good Omnipotent, who so carest for every one of us as if 
Thou caredst for him only, and so for all as if they were but 
one.—AUGUSTINE, Confessions, Book iti. chap. xi. 

Providence their guide.—Paradise Lost, xii. 647. 


They that watch Providences shall never want a Providenco to 
watch.—_MatTTHEW HENRY. 

It taught me to know that Providence was a reality, and prayer 
the highest sacrament.—Charles Kingsley, 1. 66 (with reference to _ 
the year before his marriage). 

I have always been a child of Providence.—Lelters of James 
Macdonald, p. 25. Cf. Thomas Boston, Account of my Life, Period iii. 


CONTENTS 


Each life a page in the “Book of Providence . 
Sir Thomas Browne’s miracle of thirty years . 
A befitting reserve . ° : . s 

Providence in a single life . ; . . 
Jacob's testimony to Providence ; : : 
Newman’s teaching on Providence ‘ ’ 
Pessimism takes an unworthy view of life . 
Wesley’s recognition of Providence . : 


Providence in other lives . : p : ‘ 
John Harvard in America . . A 
Margaret Ogilvy and her faith in Browntenes : 
Comfort of faith in Providence. : a ‘ 
Flavel on Providence . : 


A personal study of the ways of Broviaenta : 


LITERATURE 


PAUE 
245 
245 
246 
247 
247 
248 
250 
251 
252 
253 
253 
254 
256 
256 


Newman, Sermons bearing on Subjects of the Day, Parochial Sermons ; 
Bruce, The Providential Order ; Bremond, The Mystery of Newman; Isaac 
Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm; Flavel, Divine Conduct; or, the 


Mystery of Providence. 


XI 


Divine Providence. That is the crowning glory 

of this truth as set forth in the New Testa- 
ment. Our interest becomes intense as we turn to our 
own page. It is more personal than the record of the 
Providence that rules the world, that guides the nations, 
that inspires the Church. It is my page. As we look 
along its lines we live over again days made memorable 
by divine interpositions in sickness, in danger, in 
temptation. We read the story with memories of 
God’s goodness which are always new. So did Sir 
Thomas Browne pay his tribute— 


boo human life has its page in the Book of 


‘ Now for my life it is a miracle of thirty years, which 
to relate were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and to 
common ears would sound like a miracle.’ 

Who that has ever been young, that has lived light in the 
spring, can fail to understand what Sir Thomas Browne 
meant by his miracle of thirty years? It was to those who 
cannot that Christ refused a sign. If the world, with all 
its myriad wonders, will not touch them, if through the 
Veils of all its so transparent forms they cannot see the face 
of God flashing—neither will they behold though one roge 
from the dead.? 


* Le Gallienne, Religion of a Literary Man, p. 12. 


246 Man’s Partnership with 


This subject is sacred. Often only God and His 
human friend know all its wonders, Sometimes the 
leaf is opened that those who are dearest to us may 
read it. A certain reserve here is becoming to the man 
who feels his debt to some gracious interposition of 
Providence. 


The more fully he realizes that God is thus mercifully 
dealing with him, the less he will like to speak about it ; 
and this is one reason why the pretenders whom one. meets 
in the world have not the real insight into the course of 
Providence which they think they have, viz. because they 
talk of it so freely. Were the privileges of which they 
boast what .they think they are, they would not speak 
of them. Religious men, on the contrary, are very reserved, 
if only that they dare not betray, if we may so speak, 
God’s confidence. This circumstance, however, makes 
it the more difficult to speak on the subject without 
unreality ; still, I suppose it is true that religious men 
have their prayers answered in a wonderful way, and with 
sufficient distinctness to be, in addition to other evidences, 
a ground of confidence to them that God is with them.1 


Newman’s view must be received with a certain 
reserve. We can make no better contribution to the 
upbuilding of other characters than a fitting and timely 
tribute to what we have known of these riches of help 
and blessing. Ii there were no other proof of the 
overruling providence of God, the personal experience 
of believers would give them strong confidence in His 
never-failing care. The very limitation of the range 


1 Newman, Sermons bearing on Subjects of the Day, pp. 399-400. 


Se Pe ae 


a ad oy 


_ ae 
~ eee 


Divine Providence 247 


of such experience is of advantage. We are brought 
into close quarters with the subject. History deals 
with nations and centuries; here we have the record of 
a life with its lessons written on its face. 

Memory finds in these incidents constant food for 
faith and hope. Newman says— 


Jacob’s distinguishing grace, then, as I think it may 
be called, was a habit of affectionate musing upon God’s 
providences towards him in time past, and of overflowing 
thankfulness for them. ... Such was Jacob, living in 
memory rather than in hope, counting times, recording 
seasons, keeping days ; having his history by heart, and his 
past life in his hand. And as if to carry on his mind with 
that of his descendants, it was enjoined upon them, that 
once a year every Israelite should appear before God with 
a basket of fruit of the earth, and call to mind what God 
had done for him and his father Jacob, and express his 
thankfulness for it.” 


Before its work is finished we sometimes misinterpret 
the Providence that is over our lives. Jacob misjudged 
God when he complained, ‘ All these things are against 
me’ (Gen, xlii. 36), but he lived to revise his verdict 
and to commend Joseph’s son to that providential care 
which had so greatly enriched and protected him (Gen. 
xlviii. 15, 16), The Jewish patriarch would have 
endorsed those words of Flavel—‘ Tis the fear of God 
within us and the providence of God round about us 
which make the firm and solid basis of all sanctified 


1 See Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 255. 
2 Parochial Sermons, v. pp. 75-82. 


248 Man’s Partnership with 


and desirable prosperity.’ On his death-bed the whole 
course of God’s providence was lighted up, and he set 
his seal to the truth that goodness and mercy had 
followed him all the days of his life. 

Joseph had already opened the book of Providence 
to comfort his brothers when their sin found them out 
(Gen. xlv. 5,7). God had overruled their wrong-doing 
for the blessing of a multitude. The family aspect of 
Providence is never lost sight of in these pages of the 
patriarchal record, and we are not less rich in the care 
and love of God for our families than were His servants 
of earlier generations. Mordecai saw that Esther’s per- 
sonal triumph had been a providential preparation for 
conspicuous service to her race (Esther iv. 13, 14), 
St. Paul rejoices in the Providence which had made 
him the instrument for the salvation of Onesimus in 
Rome (Phil. v. 10). 

There is a suggestive chapter entitled ‘ Presages’ in 
a recent study of Newman. M. Bremond says— 


The guiding voice of God presents itself to us, not as 
a luminous whole, but broken up into an indefinite series 
of small and obscure glimmering lights. It is the large 
prism of ‘present duty’ which splits up every instant 
the divine ray, and shows us, instead of the long list 
of directions for the way which our imagination would 
demand, just what is necessary for us to see in order to 
take one step in advance. 


Newman’s teaching on this subject brings home 


* Henri Bremond, The Mystery of Newman, chap. vii. p. 282. 


Divine Providence 249 


the doctrine of Providence, in presenting it to the 
religious conscience no longer as a far-off Sanction, but 
as a rule that is immediate, direct, and precise. It is 
the ‘Discourse on Universal History’ adapted to each 
particular existence. -A sovereign hand holds and crosses 
at His pleasure the threads of all created activities; a 
wisdom eternal and minutely attentive, foresees, chooses, 
predetermines, follows close, is imminent in, the slightest 
details of the events which cross the path of each life. 
God, an ever-present witness, an actor always on the stage, 
awaits and watches us without intermission; and the most 
insignificant of coincidences is big, perhaps, with some 
divine project. 

Newman bids us ‘lay up deep in our hearts the 
recollection, how mysteriously little things are in this 
world connected with great; how single moments, 
improved or wasted, are the salvation or ruin of all- 
important interests.’ * 

His own election as Fellow of Oriel made Newman’s 
path of service clear to him, and he was ‘constant all 
through his life, as his intimate friends know, in his 
thankful remembrance year after year of this great 
mercy of Divine Providence.’ ® 

Human lives furnish innumerable instances of the 
way in which God chooses the sphere of service for 
His servants. John Baxter, the naval shipwright, 
was sent to Antigua to carry on the work among 
the negroes which Nathaniel Gilbert had begun, and 

1 Henri Bremond, The Mystery of Newman, chap. vii. p. 283. 


2 Parochial Sermons, ii. p. 114, 
3 Letters, i. 73. 


250 Mian’s Partnership with 


Barbara Heck to be His witness in New York, and to 
stir up Philip Embury to ‘employ his talent, which for 
several years had been hid, as it were, in a napkin.’? 

The reason for many a change in home and circum- 
stances may be sought in the Providence which wants 
a workman to do a piece of neglected work. 

Pessimism cuts itself off from Providence, It takes 
an unworthy view of human life. It is blind to the 
dignity and glory of man ; it has no conception what 
the Fatherhood of God involves. It will not understand 
how God can care for a creature so short-lived and so 
lowly. The temptation is one which all feel at times. 


The lives of common men are too obscure to find a 
place in the pages of history, and we are tempted to think 


that they are almost too minute objects for the eye of . 


Providence to rest on.” 


The root of such a difficulty lies in limitations of 
the divine power and love, and forgetfulness of the 
place man holds in the heart of God. Schopenhauer 
says— 


_The life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole 
and in general, is really always a tragedy. The deeds and 
vexations of the day, the restless irritation of the moment, 
the desires and fears of the week, the mishaps of every 
hour, are all through chance, which is ever bent upon 
some jest, scenes of a comedy. Thus, as if fate would 
add derision to the misery of our existence, our fate must 


* Letter of Thomas Taylor to John Wesley. 
* Bruce, The Providential Order, p. 258, 


Divine Providence 251 


contain all the woes of tragedy, and yet we cannot even 
assert the dignity of tragic characters, but in the broad 
detail of life must mee hayty be the foolish characters of a 
comedy.’ 

Such despair does despite to all Scripture cae 
as to the creation of man. It ignores the meaning of 
the Incarnation, which gives abiding glory to human 
nature. We have seen how Science supports the Bible 
in regarding man as king of the great domain of Nature. 
Such teaching leaves no room for pessimism. In view 
of his origin and his work, man is worthy of all the 
care which Divine Providence lavishes upon him, and 
there is reasonable ground to expect that when the 
new heaven and new earth are revealed that care of 
Divine Providence will be abundantly repaid. 

There is no detail of life in which a good man does 
not trace the hand that guides. Wesley saw that there 
is a Providence over a man’s reading. ‘The providence 
of God directing me to 4 Kempis’ writings.’ Every 
step in his life, every feature in his work, was guided 
and shaped by the same gracious hand. As he reviewed 
his history he realized more and more that it was a 
tissue of providences, This was his strength and 
comfort. God was always with him. 

At York, on June 7, 1755, he writes— 


One of the Residentiaries sent for Mr. Williamson, who 
had invited me to preach in his church, and told him, 
‘Sir, I abhor persecution; but if you let Mr. Wesley 


1 The World as Will and Idea, pp. 415-16. 


2502 Man’s Partnership with 


preach, it will be the worse for you.’ He desired it 
nevertheless ; but I declined. Perhaps there is a provi- 
dence in this also. God will not suffer my little remaining 
strength to be spent on those who will not hear me but 
in an honourable way. 


The Journal for March, 1757, says— 


Mr. Fletcher helped me again. How wonderful are 
the ways of God! When my bodily strength failed, and 
no clergyman in England was able and willing to assist 
me, He sent me help from the mountains of Switzerland, 
and a help meet for me in every respect. Where should 
I have found such another ? 


Fletcher had been ordained the previous Sunday at 
Whitehall, and hastened to West Street to help Wesley 
in the service. | 

Karl Shaftesbury’s Methodist nurse was one of the 
chief providences of his life. Lowly workers are thus 
linked with those who stand out from their fellows. 
They have their abiding reward in the influence of those 
they have prayed for and trained in the love and fear 
of God. 

Personal experience of the care of Divine Provi- 
dence gives courage to face the future, The Shepherd 
Psalm closes with that triumphant note, ‘Surely good- 
ness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for 
ever’ (Ps, xxiii. 6). It is faith in God’s providential 
rule that alone can banish fear. Cuthbert’s saying to 
his discouraged followers breathes strong trust in the 


Divine Providence 253 


God of Providence. ‘Look at the eagle overhead ; God 
can feed us through him if He will.’ 

Captain Edward Johnson, to whom we owe a 
volume with the inspiring title, Wonder- Working Provi- 
dence of Ston’s Saviour in New England, wrote an 
account of the way in which the ‘ pilgrim people’ 
began to erect a college, the Lord by His provident hand 
giving His approbation to the work, in sending over a 
faithful and godly servant of His, the reverend Mr. John 
Harvard, who joining with the people of Christ at Charles- 
town, suddenly after departed this life, and gave near a 
thousand pounds towards the work; wherefore the 
Government thought it meet to call it Harvard College 
in remembrance of him.’ 

It was a strange providence which led the South- 
wark butcher’s son, after seven years’ training at 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with his young bride 
to America, where he died of consumption fourteen 
months later. He saw the blessing which learning 
would bring to the rising community, and though he 
died his work has been expanding ever since. 

Mr. Barrie’s story of his mother’s faith is a lovely 
tribute to Divine Providence. Her favourite para- 
phrase, the last she read, was that on Isa. xl. 27-31— 
‘the Omnipotence of Christ the comfort of His people.’ 


Art thou afraid His power shall fail 
When comes thy evil day? 

And can an all-creating arm 
Grow weary or decay ? 


1 H.C. Shelley’s John Harvard and his Times, pp. 290-1. 


254 Man’s Partnership with 


I heard her voice gain strength as she read it, I saw her 
timid face take courage. . . . She talked of the long and 
lovely life she had had, and of Him to whom she owed it. 
She said good-bye to them all, and at last turned her face 
to the side where her best-beloved had lain, and for an hour 
she prayed. They only caught the words now and again, 
and. the last they heard were ‘God’ and ‘love.’ I think 
God was smiling when He took her to Him, as He had so 
often smiled at her during those seventy-six years.’ 


Mr. Barrie was full of apprehension when he had 
to tell her that her daughter, who had nursed her with 
unflagging devotion, had died almost on her feet. But 
the blow was softened, and his sister and his mother, 
who died three days later, were buried together. As he 
thought of God’s mercy amid the sorrow, he seemed to 
hear his mother saying, ‘ O ye of little faith,’ 

Newman writes with great force and beauty on the 
subject of ‘A Particular Providence as revealed in the 
Gospel.’ He describes it as a thought almost too great 
for our faith. 


How gracious is this revelation of God’s particular 
Providence to those who seek Him! God beholds thee 
individually ...and understands thee as He made 
thee . . . He sympathizes in thy hopes and thy tempta- 
tions. He interests Himself in all thy anxieties and 
remembrances. He compasses thee round and bears thee 
in His arms. . . . He looks tenderly upon thy hands and 
thy feet; He hears thy voice, the beating of thy heart, 
and thy very breathing. Thou dost not love thyself 


> Margaret Ogilvy, pp. 184, 202-3. 


Divine Providence 255 


better than He loves thee. Thou canst not shrink from 
pain more than He dislikes thy bearing it; and if He puts 
it on thee it is as thou will put it on thyself, if thou art 
wise, for a greater good afterward. 


Dr. Arnold is of the same mind. He quotes our 
Lord’s words, ‘Let not your heart be troubled: ye 
believe in God, believe also in Me’; and adds— 


By which I understand that it is not so much general 
notions of Providence which are our best support, but a 
sense of the personal interest, if I may so speak, taken in 
our welfare by Him who died for us and rose again.? 


Even when things seem to go amiss the good man’s 
heart will not fail. The past will supply so many 
instances of God’s grace and care that he will be strong 
for the days of testing. He will remember St. Paul’s - 
great ‘law of Providence’: ‘ All things work together 
for good to them that love God’ (Rom. viii. 28). It is 
not only unwise but ungrateful to murmur. There 1s 
a fine spirit in that word of Sir James Stephen— 


I have passed a life which is now in its wane in the 
uninterrupted enjoyment of the best temporal gifts of 
Providence, and it would be criminal and irrational to 
disturb myself at the prospect of some of the least im- 
portant of them being withdrawn.° 


Dean Church dwells impressively upon the comfort 
which faith in Providence inspires in his sermon on 
1 Parochial Sermons, iii. 123-5. 


* Stanley’s Life of Dr. Arnold, Letter 60. 
3 Letters of Sir James Stephen, p. 58. 


256 Man’s Partnership with 


‘The Never-failing Providence of God.’ He asks 
whether there is no present and immediate remedy 
against our fears, no truth which may lift off the burden 
from our mind and heart. He finds this, he says, 


in the thought that God guides us; that we are not 
walking and wandering unwatched, uncared for—helpless 
among enemies, blindly stumbling along a path in which 
no one directs our steps; but that all around us, now and 
to-morrow, and each hour until the end, are the watchful 
eyes of God, are the mighty hands of God. From the 
range of those eyes we can never stray ; from out of those 
hands we can never fall. Infinite wisdom is in that 
foresight that never fails; infinite love and goodness in 
that power which has no master. Are we able to trust 
that wisdom? Are we willing to submit ourselves to that 
will? Then we are within a shelter where we can take no 
harm. ‘Then, come what may, we are safe.? 


There is no presumption in looking for providential 
guidance and succour in our own lives. They belong 
to God; they are His gift, they are His instruments. 
We live in a world that is broad-based on Providence, 
and every daily mercy we enjoy comes from the hand 
of our heavenly Father. He can surely add those 
unexpected blessings which His children need. Per- 
sonal experience of God’s providence is what we are 
encouraged to expect by the exceeding great and 
precious promises. 

Every man’s life, then, is‘a plan of God.’ Flavel, 
in his treatise on Divine Conduct, or the Mystery of 


1 Village Sermons, p. 166, 


Divine Providence 25% 


Providence, has an address, ‘ To the Ingenuous Readers, 
those especially who are the heedful observers of the 
ways of Providence.’ 


I am greatly mistaken, if the history of our own lives, if 
it were well drawn up, and distinctly perused, would not 
be the pleasantest history that ever we read in our lives. 


He explains the object of his work, and adds— 


But, reader, thou only art able to compile the history of 
Providence for thyself, because the memorials that furnish 
it are only in thine own hands. | 


Christians are advised ‘to keep written memorials, 
or journals, of Providence by them, for their own and 
others’ use and benefit.’ 


Providence [he urges] carries our lives, liberties, and 
concernments in its hand every moment. Your bread is in 
its cupboard, your money in its purse, your safety in its 
enfolding arms ; and sure it is the least part of what you 
owe, to record the favours you receive at its hands. 


Flavel was ejected from the living of Dartmouth in 
1662. His treatise is dedicated to William, Duke of 
Bedford. Some idea of its contents may be gained 
from his scheme. He says, ‘ First, I shall prove that 
the concernments of the saints in this world, are 
certainly conducted by the wisdom and care of special 
Providence ; Secondly, I will show you in what 
particular concernments of theirs this Providentia] 
care 1s evidently discovered ; Thirdly, that it is the 
duty of saints to advert, and heedfully observe these 


258 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


performances of Providence for them in all their 
concernments; Fourthly, In what manner this Duty is 
to be performed by them,’ &c. 

Isaac Taylor sets us wondering over the Providence 
that shapes our lives in ways far beyond our own will 
or wisdom. A man’s unchosen lot sometimes has, 


if we may so speak, been constructed from the float- 
ing fragments of other men’s fortunes, drifted by the 
accidents of wind and tide across the billows of life, till 
they were stranded at the very spot where the individual 
for whom they were destined was ready to receive them. 
By such strong and nicely fitted movements of the machine 
of Providence it is that the tasks of life are distributed 
where best they may be performed, and its burdens 
apportioned where best they may be sustained, By 
accidents of birth or connexion, the bold, the sanguine, 
the energetic, are led into the front of the field of arduous 
exertion; while by similar fortuities, quite as often as by 
choice, the pusillanimous, the fickle, the faint-hearted, are 
suffered to spend their days under the shelter of ease, and 
in the recesses of domestic tranquillity.’ 


1 Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 139. 


XII 
REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES 


And still it hath been the pious and constant practice of the 
saints in all generations, to preserve the memory of the more famous 
and remarkable providences that have befallen them in their times, 
as a precious treasure.—FLAVEL. 


When the loose mountain trembles from on high, 
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? 
Pores, Essay on Man, 


Providence and courage never abandon the good soldier.—Co1gnret 
(SLoaNne’s Napoleon Bonaparte, iii, 248). 


Don’t give up before the ship goes down: 
It’s a stiff gale, but Providence wun’t drown. 
LowELL, Biglow Papers, II. ii. 315-6. 


The miracles of Providence, if only clear knowledge be not want- 
ing, are not to be viewed as something isolated, but as the most wide- 
spread of all. It is doubtless true that what has been long prepared 
in the world’s history by natural causes bursts forth at last, as Klopstock 
says, in the thunder-track of decisive crisis. But it is mere human 
short-sightedness when miracles of divine wisdom are only acknow- 
ledged at last in a single point.—Dorner, A System of Christian 
Doctrine, ii, 157. 


CONTENTS 


The Providence Section in the Methodist Magazine 
A tribute to its interest . eniveels : ° . . : + eae 
Strange coincidences in our lives . Pasa ° 2 . . 264 
Danger of multiplying these incidents . : ‘ 
Providence not Occasionalism . : . ‘ ; 
Remarkable men and remarkable events . : ‘ . . Peer sy | 
Cromwell’s thoughts on Providence . ° . 
Danger of misinterpreting events . . . 
Pope’s questions on Providence Sha! . . . » 271 
Remarkable providences give emphasis to the eee . : 
Trust, not presumption . Pele CAM . . . ° - 273 
Boethius on Divine Providence . ‘ . aioe ‘ . 274 


LITERATURE . 


Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God; Newman, Parochial Sermons; i 
M‘Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government; W. N. Clarke, An Outline 
of Christian Theology: Isaac Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm. i 


XII 


N the Methodist Magazine for 1804, Joseph Benson 

| started a memorable section: ‘The Providence 

of God Asserted.’ In sketching ‘the Nature of 

the Plan intended to be pursued in the future manage- 

ment of this publication,’ he ‘takes this opportunity of 

informing the subscribers, that the principal end in- 

variably kept in view, will be to illustrate the Word, 
Works, Providence, and Grace of God.’ 


The fourth department will be occupied by materials 
designed to illustrate the providential government of God, 
whether over the world in general, or over certain nations, 
churches, families, or individuals in particular. It is, 
therefore, designed to include, as far as place can be found 
for them, sketches of universal or particular history, civil 
or ecclesiastical, prefaced by a short essay on the import- 
ance of historic information, and also such entertaining 
accounts and anecdotes as seem most likely to persuade the 
younger part of our readers that God governs the world, 
and that His providence extends to the meanest person and 
most minute events. 


The section opens with an extract from Flavel’s 
Mystery of Providence— 


O what a world of rarities are to be found in Providence ! 
The blind, heedless world makes nothing of them: they 


262 Man’s Partnership with 


cannot find one sweet morsel, where a gracious soul would 
make a rich feast. 


An account of the Wexford Rebellion in 1798 
follows, with an anecdote of a servant who cared 
for her aged parents and was herself cared for by a 
gracious Providence. Thrilling and wonderful stories, 
gathered from history and biography, or original 
experiences sent in by contributors, appeared for many 
years in the Magazine, and bore the fruit of quickened 
faith in a host of lives. 

Emerson speaks lightly of those who believe in ‘a 
Pistareen-Providence, which, whenever the good man 
wants a dinner, makes that somebody shall knock at 
his door, and leave half a dollar, ! 

But the man who has enjoyed such help in his 
extremity does not speak lightly of it. He knows too 
well what he owes to the care of God to fail to wonder 
at the strange way in which hearts are touched with 
pity for the destitute. 

Benson died in 1821, and next year the familiar 
section disappears, though a promise was made in the 
third series of the Magazine to deal with ‘ Remarkable 
events, displaying the operations of Divine Providence 
towards nations or individuals.’ 

No one can really estimate the influence of that 
introduction into the world of providential wonders. 
One testimony has recently been given which expresses 


1 The Conduct of Life: ‘Fate.’ 


Divine Providence 263 


the feeling of many. The Rev. F. W. Macdonald says 
that among the sets of volumes in his father’s study 
were the Methodist Magazines. 


I must pay my tribute here to those old magazines, 
companions of my childhood’s Sunday afternoons, foster- 
parents of my imagination in its earliest growth, and of my 
youthful piety in those first workings, which are at once so 
quaint and pathetic. Their contents were distributed under 
certain fixed headings, such as‘The Providence of God 
Asserted,’ ‘The Works of God Displayed,’ &c, which 


prepared the mind, and pointed the moral, as it were, 
beforehand. ( 


After referring to the latter section, Mr. Macdonald 
says— 

But ‘ The Providence of God Asserted ’ yielded still keener 
delight. There I made acquaintance with the stranger who 
suddenly opens the door of the widow’s cottage where the 
children are crying for bread, and places a bag of money 
on the table ; and with the dog who insists upon following 
the traveller to his room in the lonely inn, and drags a 
would-be robber and murderer from under the bed.? 


There is some danger in dwelling too much on 
remarkable providences. An event which is thus 
described may be susceptible of a simpler explanation. 
It may be the outcome of some unexpected and un- 
detected coincidence, and may really be less remark- 
able than many things which attract little attention. 
The most remarkable providences are really to be 


1 In a Nook with a Book, p. 9. 


264 Man’s Partnership with 


found in the general course of events, in the daily 
mercies and homely events of our lives, in the mani- 
fest guidance of the course of history and the progress 
of the Church. Here is the field where Providence is 
most signally at work. Some events which are 


claimed as miraculous may very well bear a different ex- 
planation ; but if others remained, I should still prefer to 
look at them from the side of Providence, rather as 
steps of a divine plan which might need to be declared, 
than as exertions of a divine power which could not need 
to be further proved than it was already. However great 
may be the mighty hand and outstretched arm, still greater 
is the guiding and directing power which any theistic 
belief compels us to see in the general course of the 
history.’ 


Nevertheless we have our personal record of divine 
help, and it is as precious to us as the remarkable 
providences which they traced in their lives were to 
the great Bible saints. . 

The range of what we may call remarkable provi- 
dences, outstanding instances of help and deliverance, 
is wider than we sometimes suppose. Newman shows 
how God speaks to all. 


Who is there, for instance, but has been favoured with 
answers to prayer, such that, at the time, he has felt he 
never could again be unbelieving? Who has not had 
strange coincidences in the course of his life which brought 
before him, in an overpowering way, the hand of God? 
Who has not had thoughts come upon him with a kind of 


* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 19. 


" * 
eee err 


Divine Providence 265 


mysterious force, for his warning or direction? And some 
persons, perhaps, experience stranger things still. Wonderful 
providences have, before now, been brought about by means 
of dreams ; or in other still more unusual ways Almighty 
God has at times interposed. 


Newman says that the study of such things makes 
thoughtful persons 


begin to have a sort of faith in the divine meaning of the 
accidents (as they are called) of life, and a readiness to take 
impressions from them, which may easily become excessive, 
and which, whether excessive or not, is sure to be ridiculed 
by the world at large as superstition. Yet, considering 
Scripture tells us that the very hairs of our head are all 
numbered by God, that all things are ours, and that all 
things work together for our good, it does certainly encourage 
us in thus looking out for His presence in everything that 
happens, however trivial, and in holding that to religious 
ears even the bad world prophesies of Him." 


Enthusiasm is apt to lay undue stress upon 
mysterious or remarkable providences. All God’s 
dealings with men are wonderful, and those that are 
least regarded now may shine out by-and-by above 
the rest. 


While there is abundant room in the method of Providence 
for wonderful conjunctions and recurrences intended by 
God, we must on that very account be the more on our 
cuard against that mystical and speculative spirit which 
would multiply them without evidence. The intricacy of 
God’s procedure, while it admits of His appointing mysterious 


* Parochial Sermons, vi. ser. 17, pp. 248-50. 


266 Man’s Partnership with 


connexions between events, also furnishes a field in which 
human fancy and conjecture will delight to sport. The 
human spirit has often wandered in the mazes of Divine 
Providence without a pathway to keep it in the right 
direction, and invented correspondences and analogies which 
were never thought of by the Creator of the world. The 
arts of divination, necromancy, and astrology have betaken 
them to these misty regions, whence it has been most 
difficult to dislodge them.? 


Is there any* means by which we may interpret 
such events? Dr. M‘Cosh thinks that when we can 
trace a natural, moral, or religious tie we may find 


designed combinations, many and wonderful, between the 
various events of Divine Providence. Read in the spirit of 
faith, striking relations will everywhere manifest them- 
selves. What singular unions of two streams at the proper 
place to help on the exertions of the great and good! 
What curious intersection of cords to catch the wicked as 
in a net, when they are prowling as wild beasts ! ? 


Events joined by an observable invariable law 
illustrate the natural tie. When physical events sup- 
port moral ends or promote religious purposes, the tie 
is moral or religious. 

We do not believe in mere Occasionalism. Divine 
Providence is unceasing in its care for the world, and 
we must not speak as though remarkable providences 
stood out in contrast to its ordinary methods. They 
are rather times when men’s eyes are opened to discern 


1 M‘Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government, p. 196. 
2 Thid., p. 198. 


Divine Providence 267 


the hand of God—when some escape from danger, 
some relief in necessity, brings home to the heart the 
divine mercy that watches over human lives, We hold 
that 


God can directly alter the course of events if He will, in 
answer to human prayer, or without it. The ordinary 
doctrine of Providence sets this element at the front. In 
popular speech, indeed, Providence chiefly means inter- 
vention and overruling. Events that show wisdom and 
kindness are called, most unfortunately, ‘ providences.’... 
But we must firmly hold that Providence is more than such 
occasional intervention of God, and must beware of the 
temptation to see His hand in what we like, and nowhere 
else. If our doctrine of Providence is a doctrine of divine 
occasionalism, it will desert us in time of need. Nor is it 
best to speak much of intervention, or interposition, lest it 
appear that God is not in the order of the world except at 
special moments. Yet the ability of the free God to alter 
the course of events if He will is by all means to be held 
fast. Providence is the indwelling governance of the world 
by a God so free that He may influence it as He wishes. 
Though our faith in this steady governance is so strong that 
we do not ask Him to alter the course of events, still His 
power to do so is essential to a clear and restful doctrine of 
His Providence.} 


No providences are more remarkable than those 
concerned in the emergence of great men at some crisis 
in human affairs. Our own history turns our minds to 
Hampden and Cromwell, or reminds us how Nelson 
and Wellington were raised up to counteract the 


1 W.N, Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 152. 


268 Man’s Partnership with 


schemes of Napoleon and to save Europe from a 
crushing military despotism. Holland is still full of 
William the Silent, whose leadership of the forces of 
patriotism and liberty against the tyranny of Philip II. 
is one of the most remarkable providences of Dutch 
history. 

Great events also furnish many signal instances of 
providential interposition. 

The winds that sunk the Spanish Armada, which 
threatened at once the Protestant religion and the liberties 
of England; and, again, the favourable breezes which 
enabled William of Orange, when these privileges were 
endangered, to escape the fleet that was ready to seize 
him, and land in safety on our shores: these are provi- 
dential occurrences, in which pure minds have ever delighted 
to discover the hand of God; and this, too, with reason, 
according to the principles which we have been developing. 

In the midst of the Corn Law struggle, ‘Cobden — 
was aware that, in words used at the time, “Three 
weeks of rain when the wheat was ripening would rain 
away the corn law.” Everybody knows how the rain 
came, and alarming signs of a dreadful famine in Ireland 
came.’ 2 

The field of individual life will furnish abundant 
instances of remarkable providences. No one will 
hesitate thus to describe John Wesley’s escape from 
the fire at Epworth. To the end of his life that was 
for him a crowning instance of the guardian care of 


* M‘Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government, pp. 203-4. 
* Morley’s Life of Gladstone, Book ii, chap, x. 


Divine Providence 269 


God. ‘Rob Roy’ MacGregor never failed to pay his 
tribute to the gracious Providence which watched over 
him as an infant of five weeks old when the Kent, East 
Indiaman, was burnt in the Bay of Biscay in March, 
1825. As soon as those who had been saved from the 
burning vessel reached Falmouth, the captain, with his 
crew and passengers, went to the church to give thanks 
to the God of Providence. ‘It was a thrilling moment 
when all voices, some choking with emotion, uttered 
the words, “ We bless Thee for our creation, preservation, 
and all the blessings of this life!”’? 

John G. Paton’s life was a tissue of providences, 
More than a hundred deliverances from death are 
noted in his wonderful autobiography. Scarcely less 
impressive is the story of ‘ Faizabad Elliott.’ 

The danger of interpreting events in our own 
favour is not to be ignored. Cromwell’s address on 
July 4, 1653, in his council-chamber, dwells on 
that series of providences, wherein the Lord hath dis- 
pensed wonderful things to these nations, from the 
beginnings of our troubles to this very day. . . . Although 
it be fit for us to entitle our failings and miscarriages to 


ourselves, yet the gloriousness of our work may well be attri- 
buted to God Himself, and may be called His strange work. 


There is no doubt in the Protector’s mind as to 
the divine leading. ‘Truly God had called you to 
this work by, I think, as wonderful providences as 
ever passed upon the sons of men in so short a time.’ 


1 John MacGregor, pp. 20-1. 


270 Man’s Partnership with 


He was not ignorant, however, of the danger of mis- 
interpreting the ways of God. In 1657, when the title 
of King was pressed on him, he says: ‘I hope I shall 
ever have, for the rule of my conscience, for my infor- 
mation, so truly men that have been [led] in the dark 
paths through the providence and dispensations of 
God.’ 

A man may ‘impute his own blindness and folly to 
Providence sinfully, yet that must be at my peril.’ ‘I 
must needs say I have had a great deal of experience of 
Providence, and though it is no rule without or against 
the Word, yet it is a very good exposition of the Word 
in many cases... . Truly the providence of God has 
laid this title [of King] aside providentially. God had 
‘seemed providentially not only to strike at the family 
but at the name.’ He tries to trace ‘the providences 
of God, how they have led us hitherto.’ That is for 
him clear ground.? 7 

Cromwell, however, lays himself open to the charge 
of looking at things from the standpoint of his own 
prepossessions and interests, 


The Protector professed to see the hand of God, aspecial - 
intervention, when he succeeded, and things went well. It 
was not the arm of flesh that had done these things. They 
were remarkable providences, and the like. There is not 
a more perilous or immoral habit than the sanctifying of 
success.” 


1 Stainer’s Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, pp. 87, 89. 105, 303-4, 319, 
2 Acton, Modern History, p. 204. 


Divine Providence 271 


It makes a man presume on divine favour and forget 
that Providence is only on his side as long as he does 
his own part faithfully. 

Pope deals with the difficulty caused by what we 
may call remarkable providences. He looks around 
and sees the reign of law. 


The Gen’ral Order, since the world began, 
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in man,’ 


Then he asks his famous questions— 


Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause 
Prone for His favourites to reverse His laws? 

Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, 

Forget to thunder, and recall her fires ? 

On air or sea new motions be imprest, 

Oh, blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast ? 

When the loose mountain trembles from on high, 
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? 

Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, 

For Chartres’ head reserve the hanging wall? 2 


Wesiey says— 


We answer, If it please God to continue the life of any 
of His servants, He will suspend that or any other law of 
nature: the stone shall not fall; the fire shall not burn; 
the floods shall not flow; or, He will give His angels 
charge, and in their hands shall they bear them up, through 
and above all dangers.® 


Emerson can see no remarkable providences. ‘The 
diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect 
no persons. The way of Providence is a little rude,’ 4 


1 Essay on Man, i. 172-2. ? Tbid., iv. 121-30. 
3 Works, vi. 322. 4 The Conduct of Life: ‘ Fate.’ 


272 Man’s Partnership with 


There is no escape from the difficulty in the thought 
that Nature is capricious. Faith in God would be 
impossible if Nature were to disobey the rules stamped 
upon her. SBut, as Dr. M‘Cosh says in criticizing 
Pope’s lines— 

The volcano may burst, the tempest may rage, and the 
cliff may fall, an instant before or an instant after the time 
when these events might have been followed with fatal 
consequences ; or some passing impulse of feeling may 
have hurried the individual away; or some other agent 
of Nature may have hastened to shelter or defend him, and 
all by a special arrangement intended by God from the 
very beginning.’ 

These remarkable providences, as we call them, 
bring out the meaning of that divine care which 
watches over human life and history. It is never- 
ceasing in its operation; but for the most part it is 
unobtrusive. It does not force itself on our attention, 
and we scarcely wake up to our daily debt till we are 
brought face to face with some signal instance of its 
exercise. Even then we are amazed at the homely 
methods by which the goal is reached. There is no 
ostentation about even the more remarkable working 
of Divine Providence. 


Those unforeseen accidents which so often control the 
lot of men, constitute a superstratum in the system of 
human affairs, wherein, peculiarly, the Divine Providence 
holds empire for the accomplishment of its special purposes. 


1 Method of the Divine Government, p. 183. 


Divine Providence 273 


Tt is from this hidden and inexhaustible mine of chances— 
chances as we must call them—that the Governor of the 
world draws, with unfathomable skill, the materials of His 
dispensations towards each individual of mankind. The 
world of Nature affords no instances of complicated and 
exact contrivance comparable to that which so arranges 
the vast chaos of contingencies as to produce, with unerring 
precision, a special order of events adapted to the character 
of every individual of the human family. 


We have been dealing in this chapter with a 
Subject that is confessedly difficult. The general laws 
of Nature hold, and we do not expect exceptions to be 
made to them in individual cases. Fire will burn, and 
water will drown, unless deliverance comes. But God 
has means of working on men’s minds and guiding the 
course of events which may preserve life, or guide and 
control it in extraordinary ways. Our doctrine of 
Providence must not lead us to presume on providential 
help by neglecting wise precautions, or to accuse God 
when disaster befalls those who have come under the 
operation of laws of nature which involve trouble or 
death. Yet experience endorses and emphasizes the 
psalmist’s golden saying— 


The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, 
And His ears are open unto their cry (Ps. xxxiv. 15). 


It may be interesting to add an extract from 
Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae, which was a 


* Isaac Taylor, History of Hnthustasm, pp. 131-2. 
a 


274 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


text-book of the Middle Ages, held in almost as high 
repute as the later De Imitatione Christi itself. 


Even as every craftsman thinks over and marks out his 
work in his mind, ere he take it in hand, and then carries 
it out altogether, so this changing lot that we call Fate 
proceeds according to His forethought and purpose, even as 
He resolveth that it shall be done. Though it seems to 
us manifold, partly good, partly evil, yet it is to Him good, 
pure and simple, for He bringeth it all to a goodly conclusion, 
and doeth for good all that He doeth. When it is done, 
we call it Fate; before it was God’s forethought and His 
purpose. . . . Now some things in this world are subject to 
Fate, others are in no way subject ; but Fate, and the things 
that are subject to her, are subject to Divine Providence. 
Some sages, however, say that Fate rules both weal and 
woe of every man. But I say, as do all Christian men, that 
it is the divine purpose that rules them, not Fate; and 
I know that it judges all things very rightly, though un- 
thinking men may not think so. They hold that all are 
good that work their will, and no wonder, for they are 
blinded by the darkness of their sins. But Divine Provi- 
dence understandeth it all most rightly, though we in our 
folly think it goes awry, being unable to discern what is 
right. He, however, judgeth all right, though at times it 
seems to us otherwise.’ 


1 King Alfred’s Version, Book iv. chap. xxxix. pp. xvii. 150-3, 


XIII 
PROVIDENTIAL METHODS 


There’s a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow. 
Hamlet, v. 2. 231. 


The doctrine of a particular Providence is what exceeding few 
people understand.—Wes.try, Works, xii, 183. 


‘Prayer engageth Providence’ (Isa. xlv. 11).—FLaven. 


Since a man is bound no further to himself than to do wisely, 
chance is only to trouble them that stand upon chance.—Sipney, 
Arcadia. 


The vulgar conception of Providence, as of a sloppy and inefficient 
Power, who repairs in a belated and theatrical manner his own 
mistakes—A. ©. Benson, Cornhill, 1996, p. 470. 


Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it 
is no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, to 
dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth 
of a student in diyinity.— Emerson, The Conduct of Life: ‘ Fate’ 


Theology distinguishes Providentia wniversalis, embracing also 
nature, from specialis, referring to the kingdom of rational beings, 
and spectalissima, referring only to believers. This distinction would 
be erroneous, if the meaning were that Providence is less observable 
in one province than in another.—Dorner, A System of Christian 
Doctrine, ii. 62. 

The concursus of God stands in relation to the reality of the world 
which manifests itself already in living activity. . . . The doctrine 
of conservation is thus essentially the doctrine of the divine concursus, 
and is of decisive importance in opposition to Acosmism and Deism.— 
Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, 11. 44-5. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
The methods of Providence ‘ : . ; . : : . seen 
The reign of law in the natural and spiritual world . . ~ 278 
Is Providence general or particular ? reese ny 
Belief in ‘special Providence |.) 2. +, 2) 


Abuses of this doctrine . . ° ° Mah Bs : . oe aoe 
AUdmprossive study esi eat we col Gases 
Sir James Stephen’s interest in the subject . . . . « 285 
Mysteries and their explanation . . . .« « « « 286 
Lord Selborne and Mr, Gladstone . . « . UME iil 


George Eliot . : ‘ ‘ Oh ae ar ie , . > 2. 
Human energies used and developed efip ls | Vell ay eae 
The way that Providence stirs up its agents. . - iia. one 


Light thrown on mysteries by belief in a future life . . - 290 
Death a providential method . . . ° ‘ : . « 290 
Choice of special instruments . A % ° » 291 


Prayer the link between the Divine and Human Providence » 298 
Pleasure in studying these methods ese tee Ce eae 
LITERATURE 


M‘Cosh, The Method of the Divine Government ; Steward, Mediatorial 
Sovereignty; Alexander Pope, Essay on Man; Isaac Taylor, Natural 
History of Enthusiasm; O. D. Watkins, The Divine Providence; W. N. 
Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology ; Martineau, A Study of Religion ; 
Peake, The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament; Flavel, Divine 
Conduct; or, The Mystery of Providence. 


XIII 


HE more we study Divine Providence the more 

eager we are to gain some conception of the 

methods it employs to accomplish its pur- 

poses. The human mind cannot grasp what the care of 

the universe involves. No man has ever been so pre- 

sumptuous as to attempt to order and guide the world 

as a whole. That, however, is the daily task of Pro- 

vidence. It has its plan for the earth, and for every 
living thing upon it. 

How far can we hope to track the methods of 
Providence? It isclear that general laws must occupy 
a large place in the scheme of government. There is 
an established order of Nature. The universe is a vast 
machine constructed for a special purpose. And the 
way in which it has fulfilled that purpose for ages is 
itself a mighty witness to Providence. ‘He appointed 
the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going 
down’ (Ps. civ. 19). The reign of law which has 
made some men deny that there is any Providence, 
is really a proof that the divine rule embraces all 
things. Science in every realm, in astronomy and 
botany, in its study of animals and men, is increasing 


278 Man’s Partnership with 


the force of the argument for Providence. General 
laws, then, stand out as the foremost feature in the 
methods of Providence. The order stamped on Nature 
is so wonderful that it steadily fulfils its appointed 
task through all the ages at the bidding of God, These 
general laws are divinely impressed on Nature. 

Assuming as a fact the existence and providence of 
God, the whole of our observation of Nature proves to us 
by incontrovertible evidence that the rule of His govern- 
ment is by means of second causes; that all facts, or at 
least all physical facts, follow uniformly upon given 
physical conditions, and never occur but when the appro- 
priate collection of physical conditions is realized. 

This must not be understood to mean that God has 
retired into a remote corner of the universe whilst 
a machinery of ‘second causes’ occupies His place. 
The expedient of second causes has been adopted to 
avoid difficulties arising from the existence of evil, but 
Science has shown us that God is everywhere present 
in His world.? | 

The moral and spiritual realm is guided by general 
laws, as is the natural world. In the order of Provi- 
dence certain definite results accompany virtue and vice. 
These arrangements of Providence are signs on which 
side God is, They frown upon sin and evil. Huxley 
speaks of ‘that fixed order of Nature which sends social © 
disorganization upon the track of immorality, as surely 
as it sends physical disease after moral trespasses.’ 8 


2 Mill, Theism, p. 233. 2 See Lua Mundi, p. 100. 
5 Evolution and Hthics, p. 146. 


Divine Providence 279 


Obedience to the commands of God leads to the 
highest results in the sphere of character. Honourable 
conduct wins the approval of conscience and the con- 
fidence of good men. The Sermon on the Mount deals 
with this general method of Divine Providence. ‘ But 
seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
ness; and all these things shall be added unto you’ 
(Matt. vi.33). Religion rests on this broad basis. God 


works through our natural faculties and circumstances of 
life. Still what happens to us in Providence is in all 
essential respects what His voice was to those whom He 
addressed when on earth; whether He commands by a 
visible presence, or by a voice, or by our consciences, it 
matters not, so that we may feel it to be a command.’ 


When we pass into a narrower sphere the difficulties 
as to providential methods become more acute. Does 
God confine His action to general laws, or does He take 
pity on His creatures when they need special help ? 
Does He save in times of sickness and trouble, does 
He guide in perplexity, does He answer prayer? Dr. 
M‘Cosh discusses this question with much fullness. 
He says— 


There have been disputes among thinking minds in all 
ages as to whether the providence of God is general or 
particular. Philosophers, so called, have generally taken 
the former view, and divines the latter. There has been a 
wide difference between the views of these two parties, but 
there is no necessary antagonism between the doctrines 


1 Newman, Parochial Sermons, viii. p. 23. 


280 Man’s Partnership with 


themselves. The general providence of God, properly 
understood, reaches to the most particular and minute 
objects and events ; and the particular providence of God 
becomes general by its embracing every particular. 

Those who suppose that there is a general, but that 
there cannot be a particular providence, are limiting God 
by ideas derived from human weakness.? 


Strictly speaking, no doubt, the distinction between 
general and special providence is out of place. God’s 
care is equally exercised over all His creatures.? 
Men are apt, in attending to details, to overlook wider 
interests; God is not thus limited. He rules the 
universe, yet beautifies each leaf and flower. He cares 
for the sparrow and lavishes His love on man, His 
hand is as manifest in little things as in great, nor does 
the larger interest suffer because the lesser one is cared 
for: ‘There is no searching of His understanding.’ The 
exercise of a particular providence over every detail of 
our lives is ‘altogether easy to Him.’ 8 

Dr. Newton Clarke, in his discussion of the subject of 
Providence, shows that man is part of the natural order, 


Providence, however paternal, does not exempt any 
one from gravitation, or dependence for health upon food 
and oxygen, or danger from poisons. The regularities 
upon which life depends are such as Nature orders. So are 
the regularities that terminate life. Decay and death await 
men as well as beasts and trees. Accidents come to all. 

' The Method of the Divine Government, p. 181. 
? Pope, A Higher Catechism of Theology, p. 108. 
? O. D. Watkins, The Divine Providence, p. 7, 

* An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 148. 


Divine Providence 281 


It would be impossible, however, to face the future 
if we felt ourselves simply the creatures of law and 
order, and had no vision of a loving Father who not 
only framed the world to sustain and bless His children, 
but is also mindful of their changing needs and wants. 
This thought saves us from any sense of the tyranny 
of law. 

There are ways of looking at the universe which make 
it all fixed and fated, and forge laws of Nature into laws of 
iron. There is no pity for man in them, and destiny looks 
down like the Gorgon’s head that turns to stone. Our 


actions have irrevocable consequences, and we find no place 
of repentance, though we seek it carefully with tears.’ 


That is not the doctrine of the Bible. It brings 
us into the presence of a divine Friend whose ‘eyes run 
to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself 
strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards 
Him’ (2 Chron. xvi. 9), and of a wisdom which makes 
all things work together for good to them who love God. 

We believe, then, in a special providence by which 
God steps in to adjust the working of His vast machine, 
to help and guide in times of danger and perplexity. 
Epicureans and Deists denied God this door of entrance 
to His world, or maintained that He never used it, 
But the histories of nations, churches, and individuals 
all bear traces of such interpositions. Men have called 
it chance. But ‘it is not too much to say that even in 
secular history and its records the thing meant by this 


1 Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, p. 178. 


282 Man’s Partnership with 


name may be traced as one of the most operative causes 
of great events. For this element we have a name, 
and we call it Providence—the providence of God!’ 

Some so-called interpositions may, perhaps, be re- 
solved into illustrations of the unsuspected perfection 
of the general laws and ordinary rule of God, but there 
are cases which we cannot thus explain. Nor have 
Christian men any doubt as to this special providence. 
The Bible is full of it; our Lord bears emphatic 
testimony to it. No arbitrary interference with the 
established order of Nature is required, yet there are 
a thousand ways in which God can warn, guide, and 
succour those who trust in Him. Wesley speaks of 
those who laid it down as an unquestionable maxim 
that 


The Universal Cause 
Acts not by partial, but by gen’ral laws.? 


If God never deviated from general laws; he Says, 
there never was a miracle in the world. 


Did the Almighty confine Himself to these general laws 
when He divided the Red Sea? when He commanded 
the waters to stand on a heap, and made a way for His 
redeemed to pass over ? 3 _ 


The doctrine of special providence has in all ages 
been abused and distorted by fanaticism, Isaac Taylor 
has a notable chapter on ‘ Enthusiastic Perversions of 


* Dr. J. E. Cumming, The Book of Esther, are ® 
? Pope, Hssay on Man, iv. 35-6. 
3 Works, vi 321. 


Divine Providence 283 


the Doctrine of a Particular Providence.’ Such a temper 
produces much mischief. The enthusiast 


believes, and he believes justly, that every seeming fortuity 

is under the absolute control of the divine hand; but in 
virtue of the peculiar interest he supposes himself to have 
on high, he is tempted to think that these contingencies are 
very much at his command. This belief naturally causes 
him to pay more regard to the unusual than to the common 
course of events. In contemplating God as the disposer of 
chances, he becomes forgetful of Him who is the governor 
of the world by known and permanent laws.? 


When such interpositions are regarded as more 
certain guides than the general rule of prudence or 
morality there is imminent danger of shipwreck. ‘The 
wheel of toil stands still while the devotee implores 
assistance from above.’? ‘The bottles of heaven are 
never stopped but to gratify his taste for fine weather.’ ° 
Necromancy, witchcraft, astrology, have tried to unravel 
the mysteries of Providence and made the credulous 
their dupes and victims. The inevitable reaction has 
followed. Enthusiasm when thwarted is apt to generate 


impious petulance. If we encumber the providence of God 
with unwarranted expectations, it will be difficult not so to 
murmur under disappointment as those do who think them- 
selves defrauded of their right.‘ 


Belief in a particular Providence must never ignore 
the universal Providence ‘which secures individual 


1 Natural History of Enthusiasm, 6th edn., p. 125. 
2 Thid., p. 127. 3 Thid., p. 138. 4 Thid., p. 146. 


284 Man’s Partnership with 


} interests, consistently with the well-being of the whole.’ 
It requires divine wisdom to accomplish such a task, 
but that wisdom is abundantly equal to it. 


The lot of each must therefore be shapen by reasons 
drawn from many, and often from remote, quarters. Yet 
in effecting this complex combination of parts, infinite 
wisdom prevents any clashing of the lesser with the larger 
movements ; and we may feel assured that on the grounds 
either of mere equity or of beneficence, the dispensations 
of Providence are as compactly perfect towards each 
individual of mankind as if he were the sole inhabitant of 
an only world.’ 


The method in which the designs of Providence are 
accomplished forms one of the most impressive of 
studies. We cannot always discover the whole plan, but 
we see enough to make us confident that Providence is 
at work, and to inspire us with confidence to do our own 
part patiently. Dean Hook thought it was the fault of 
his day ‘to think, and to act, as if a man could do every- 
thing, and to forget God’s special providence.’ That 
produced in the religious world a spirit of restlessness 
and a lack of calm devotion to duty. The cure for such 
a spirit is to be found in knowledge of the ways of 
God. 

Herein especially is manifested the perfection of the 
divine wisdom, that the most surprising conjunction of 
events are brought about by the simplest means, and in 


a manner so perfectly in harmony with the ordinary course 
of human affairs that the hand of the Mover is ever hidden 


* Natural History of Enthusiasm, 6th edn., p. 148. 


Divine Providence 285 


beneath second causes and is descried only by the eye 
of pious affection. This is in fact the great miracle of 
Providence—that no miracles are needed to accomplish its 
purposes. Countless series of events are travelling on from 
remote quarters towards the same point; and each series 
moves in the beaten track of natural occurrences ; but their 
intersection at the very moment in which they meet, shall 
Serve, perhaps, to give a new direction to the affairs of 
an empire. The materials of the machinery of Providence 
are of common quality; but their combination displays 
nothing less than infinite skill.’ 


Sir James Stephen wrote in 1852 to Bishop Wilson 
of Calcutta— 


Some of my reviewers have upbraided me with mis- 
apprehending or misrepresenting what Messrs. Comte, Mill, 
and Grote extol as the Positive system of historical inquiry, 
and with having written unphilosophically, not to say 
nonsensically, in asserting the doctrine of a particular 
Providence. I am not philosopher or theologian enough 
to produce any compendious vindication, or even statement, 
of that doctrine, on the precise accuracy of which I could 
myself rely, although I have an indestructible faith in the 
doctrine itself. Again I shall be most thankful for in- 
formation where I could find the most profound and com- 
plete investigation of it—that is, the precise meaning of 
the statement that ‘not a sparrow falls to the ground 
without our Father.’ That is, in my view, the very 
essence of the philosophy of history; and I would gladly 
return to it if I were quite sure of not losing my way in 
the intricacies of so great a subject.” 


' Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm, pp. 134-5. 
* Letters of Sir James Stephen, p. 155. 


286 Man’s Partnership with 


As to the perplexities and problems which we 
cannot solve, the Assembly's Shorter Catechism Explained 
(pp. 67-8) is very suggestive. 


How is Providence mysterious in the track of it ?—In 
attaining its end by contrary-like means; such as, making 
Joseph’s imprisonment the step to his being second in the 
kingdom, and the casting of Daniel into the lion’s den the 
path to his higher preferment. 

Will not dark providences be opened to the saints 
some time or other ?—Yes; for says Christ, ‘What I do, 
thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter’ 
(John xiii. 7). 

When will the mystery of Providence be opened to the 
saints ?—It shall be fully unveiled at the end of the day, 
when the mystery thereof shall be finished, and all the 
labyrinths, wherein the saints were led, fully unwinded 
(Rey. '6:::7)). 


Isaac Taylor thought there was some ground to 
suppose that our imperfect and even mistaken notions 
of the unseen and the future worlds may be used to 
accomplish the designs of Providence! Mystery is part 
of our education, and there is no reason to suppose 
that it will be struck out of the curriculum till every 
scholar has received his training. It is a test of 
character, a touchstone of virtue and obedience. 


Undoubtedly the chief characteristic of Providence is 
that of veiling from man, not merely the distant future, 
but even the proximate, and often the contingent results 
of his own actions.’ 


' Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 120. 
* Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty, ii, 351. 


Divine Providence 287 


How Providence can reach the mind and heart may 
be shown by two testimonies given by eminent Christian 
men of our own time. Lord Selborne thus refers to a 
crisis in his life— 


I had experience then (as I have had at other times also) 
of the manner in which, under the divine constitution of 
the world, impressions made by outward—sometimes by 
very common—things may be borne in upon the spiritual 
nature of a man, so as to be for the time as special revela- 
tions, oracles of God addressed to his immediate circum- 
stances, and his individual case. 


Mr. Gladstone also bore witness. 


On most occasions of very sharp pressure or trial, some 
word of Scripture has come home to me as if borne on 
eagles’ wings. Many could I recollect. The Psalms are 
the great storehouse.” 


George Eliot dwells on the same thought. The 
form of the interposition in her view has changed, but 
the special providence is still at work. 


In old days there were angels who came and took men 
by the hand and led them away from the city of destruc- 
tion. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men 
are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put 
into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm 
and bright land, so that they look no more backward ; and 
the hand may be a little child’s.® 


1 Memorials, p. 392. 
* Morley’s Life of W. H. Gladstone, Book II. chap. vi. . 
3 Silas Marner, end of chap. xiy. 


288 Man’s Partnership with 


Divine Providence accomplishes its purposes largely 
through human instruments. Man has to be trained to 
fill his part. Hunger and thirst are spurs to diligence ; 
fire and storm are teachers of prudence. All help to 
shape human character and conduct. They are not 
merely physical contingencies, but powerful allies of the 
moral government which Providence everywhere reveals. 
The conditions under which man lives forma school where 
rewards and punishments are meted out in a way that 
promotes the highest moral and spiritual interests. 4 

Throughout the ages Divine Providence has been 
stirring up man to develop his powers and avail himself 
of the boundless resources of Nature. There has 
been a progressive unfolding of the wonders of the 
earth and the riches of science as human civilization 
fitted men to make use of these gifts of Providence. 
The thirst for knowledge, the love of adventure, even 
the greed for wealth, have led to discoveries that have 
enriched the world. Lord Acton thought that an 
amusing article might be written on ‘The Philosopher's 
Stone,’ showing how often astrology had been the cradle 
of astronomy and alchemy of chemistry, how an opinion 
must be made absurd before it can be popular or 
pursued with success, since every truth requires alloy. 
He pointed out how the Reformation produced the 
Reforming Council which people had desired for a whole 
century. Columbus sought the East Indies and found 
the West. All this he regarded as providential. If 

* See W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, pp. 147-50, 


Divine Providence 289 


appeal were not made to their curiosity or ambition men 
would not go so zealously after prosaic ends. Seekers 
of the unfindable have thus gained practical results.! 
Dr. Sanday says— 

Dr. Du Bose has lately told us, and I agree with him, 


that Scepticism, too, has its place in the ways of Providence. 
By Scepticism I mean the tendency to question one’s data.’ 


Dr. Orr does not hesitate to acknowledge that, despite 
its attendant evils, rationalistic criticism ‘has been pro- 
ductive under the providence of God, of many benefits, 
which in large measure counterbalance, if they do not 
outweigh these evils,’ 3 

How large a part trouble and loss have filled in 
providential dealing with the careless and unawakened ! 
God’s goodness is never seen in brighter colours than in 
the love that has spared no warning, if only those who 
were going astray might be led into the ways of peace 
and purity. 

The sadder side of human progress is evident enough. 
Why should God allow so much blindness and wrong to 
bar the world’s onward march? Has He not to train 
His child and instrument, and is this not the way in 
which the lessons are stamped on the minds of genera- 
tions? Things ‘only comparatively good or even rela- 
tively evil’ are allowed to hold the ground till a better 
order can be introduced. 


? Lord Acton and his Circle, p. 125. 
* The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 156. 
% The Problem of the Old Testament, p.19. 


290 Man’s Partnership with 


Coleridge does not hesitate to describe revolution as 
‘a process of the Divine Providence,’ and speaks of the 
hand of Providence which has ‘disciplined all Europe 
into sobriety, as men tame wild elephants, by alternate 
blows and caresses.’ ? 

There are points which we do not understand, but 
not a few perplexities are lighted up by larger views of 
human destiny. Workers seem to be snatched away 
from spheres of -usefulness in all realms of human 
activity just when they are able to render conspicuous 
service. But if we believe in a future life, where every 
power finds ampler exercise, we may understand that no 
training received on earth is wasted. 


Surely the idea is inadmissible that an instrument wrought 
up, at so much expense to a polished fitness for service, is 
destined to be suspended for ever on the palace walls of 
heaven, as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof of 
its temper.” 


Death is itself a signal mark of the Providence that 
rules the world. It not only grants discharge to the 
worn-out labourer, but it clears the stage for his 
successor. 


Far better that death should remove the men callous to 
abuse and hostile to reform, and that men of warmer 
impulses, higher ideals, more generous enthusiasm should 
fill their place. The treasures of the past are not therefore 


1 Biographia Literaria, chap. x., edited by J. Shawcross, i. p, 122. 
2 Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm, p. 156, 


Rie, nas 
Leh wpa At on 


Divine Providence 291 


lost, but made the solid basis for future progress. And 
even for the individual, death is in itself no unhappy fate.! , 


No mind or heart could bear the strain of more than 
one lifetime. A young Christ Church tutor wrote in 
one of his last letters— 


I think that man is happiest who is taken while his hand 
is still warm on the plough, who has not lived long enough 


to feel his strength failing him, and his work every day 
worse done.? 


The future life must be taken into account in 
forming an estimate of God’s providential dealing with 
men, The divine goodness can there mete out a rich 
reward for suffering and loss endured on earth. That 
unseen world will set its seal on faithful lives, as our 
Lord taught in one of His most impressive parables : 
“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sui in the 
kingdom of their Father’ (Matt: xiii. 43), 

No study of providential methods would be complete 
which ignored the choice of special human instruments 
to carry out God’s purposes. General laws guide 
towards certain conclusions, then God chooses His 
instrument to finish the work He hasin hand. There 
is an election to service which explains much in God’s 
providential methods which has been blindly and 

* Professor Peake deals suggestively with this subject in The 
Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament, pp. 138-40. See also 
Martineau’s fine discussion in A Study of Religion, ii. pp. 75-180. 

* York Powell’s Life, ii. 8360. Richard Shute, born at Sydenham, 


1849; buried at Woking, 1886. His wife had the words engraved on 
his tomb. 


292 Man’s Partnership with 


foolishly regarded as favouritism. Providence selects a 
man, a church, a nation, and raises them to commanding 
influence. These favours are calls to service. They are 
not means for the glorification or the gratification of 
those who receive them, but means of usefulness. ‘ It is,’ 
as Roger Ascham said, ‘a part of the Divine Providence 
of the world that the strong should influence the weak.’ } 
The gifts are withdrawn when they are merely used 
to minister to personal vanity or selfish advantage. 
Those who are thus chosen are expected to set a higher 
standard of unselfishness, and to illustrate a loftier 
standard of living, not only by their words, but by their 
lives. In that sense W. von Humboldt’s saying is true: 
‘Providence does not favour individuals, but the deep 
wisdom of its counsels extends to the instruction and 
ennoblement of all.’ 

Those who are guided by quieter providential 
methods must not fail to discern the hand that leads 
them to their spheres. God is as much at work in 
these less obtrusive ways as in those that attract 
greater attention. The Bishop of Carlisle points this 
out in speaking of the means by which men are moved 
to give themselves to the work of the ministry. 


The instrument of your call may have been neither rocking 
earthquake, nor flaming fire, nor rending wind, but simply 
the still small voice of some of the ordinary providences of 
God—the example of a friend, a parent’s hope, a sentence 
in a book, an appeal in a sermon, a sympathetic glimpse of 


1 Schoolmaster, p. 3. 


Divine Providence 293 


the world with its sins and remorse, its laughter and tears, 
its failures and aspirations, its griefs and joys, its hopes and 
despairs, its obvious need of redemption, yet its amazing 
ignorance of God.’ 


When we have laid due stress on all the operation of 
general laws, all the influence of human prudence and 
obedience, we must still recognize that Providence has a 
large place as Residuary Legatee. God must step in as 
the master does when the young learner stumbles. He 
must guide and help His servants. He must overrule 
errors and mistakes. Experience proves that He 
does it. ‘God writes straight on crooked lines,’ 

Prayer is the link between the Divine and the 
Human Providence. It is reasonable to expect such a 
partnership to be provided with a means of communi- 
cation and opportunities for seeking and gaining help. 
The man of Providence needs to be kept in close and 
constant touch with the God of Providence. God insists 
on it. ‘For these things I will be inquired of by 
the house of Israel.’ 

The partnership would fail disastrously if we could 
not go to our divine Helper with our need and igno- 
rance. He knows, yet we must tell Him. That is our 
safeguard and ourcomfort. We are being used as God’s 
instruments to complete His work in the world, to 
mould it after His likeness, to stamp on it His seal. 
Justin Martyn says that the philosophers of his day 


1 Quiet Hours with the Ordinal, pp. 9-10. 


204 Man’s Partnership with 


seek to convince us also, that the Divinity extends His care 
to the great whole, and to the several kinds, but not to me 
and to you, not to men as individuals. Hence it is useless 
to pray to Him, for everything occurs according to the 
unchangeable laws of an endless cycle.’ 


If that were true it would be fatal to the partnership. 
The tasks before the humblest instrument of Providence 
are too responsible, the issues too vital, to be undertaken 
without divine guidance. Prayer is the appeal for wis- 
dom, for grace, for succour. Without it we are helpless, 
God has not left His children destitute of the means of 
adjustment to His own will. Our Saviour’s teaching is 
clear and emphatic. The Sermon on the Mount is 
steeped in prayer. The Lord’s Prayer provides the 
disciples with an approved form of appeal to the 
resources of Divine Providence. Prayer and prudent 
conduct are steadfast allies, never out of harmony with 
each other, but rather helpers of one another. The man 
who has done his part faithfully may expect the Hearer 
of prayer to support and succour him in answer to his 
cry for help and deliverance. Dr. Sanday says— 


There is no Christian whose experience does not tell 
him that prayers are answered on a very large scale indeed. 
This experience points beyond itself. It points to the 
conclusion that the Power behind the Universe is in touch 
with human spirits and human wills. It does not prove 
that God will violate His own laws, but I think it does 
prove that, within the conditions imposed by those laws, 
He does interest Himself in human affairs. In other words, 


1 Dial. ec. Tryph. Jud., beginning, 


Divine Providence 295 


there is a reciprocal relation—an actively reciprocal relation 
—between the Power without us and the spirit or personality 
within us." 


The methods of Providence furnish a wonderful 
theme for reverent study. Our eyes may sometimes 
indeed be fixed on men and circumstances so that we 
fail to trace the hand of God in His mercies; but 
reverent search into these mysteries will not lack its 
reward. 


For in the entrance of Philosophy, when the second causes, 
which are next unto the senses, doe offer themselves to the 
mind of Man, and the mind itself cleaves unto them and 
dwells there, an oblivion of the highest cause may creep 
in; but when a man passeth on farther and beholds the 
dependency, continuation, and confederacy of causes, and 
the works of Providence, than according to the allegory of 
the Poets,” he will easily believe that the highest linke of 
Nature’s chaine must needs be tyed to the foot of Jupiter’s 
chaire.* 

Our study of the methods of Divine Providence gives 
us confidence in its wisdom and the results at which 
it will arrive. Flavel loved to think of these things. 
He anticipates, as did St. John in his Apocalypse 
(Rev. v. 6-10), the crowning delight of those revelations 
which are yet in reserve. 


How great a pleasure is it to discern how the most wise 
God is providentially steering all to the port of His own 


1 The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 204. 
2 Homer, Iliad, 9. 
3 Bacon, Of the Advancement of Learning, Lib. I., chap. i. end. 


296 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


praise and His people’s happiness, whilst the whole world 
is busily employed in managing the sails and tugging at 
the oars, with a quite opposite design! To see how they 
promote His design by opposing it, and fulfil His will by 
resisting it, enlarge His Church by scattering it, and make 
their rest to become more sweet by making their condition 
so restless in the world—this is pleasant to observe in 
general; but to record and note its particular designs upon 
ourselves, with what profound wisdom, infinite tenderness, 
and incessant vigilance it hath managed all that concerns 
us, is ravishing and transporting !1 


? Flavel, Mystery of Providence. 


XIV 
PROVIDENCE AND ITS CRITICS 


It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and 
in Providence, than to see their real import and value.—Huge., 
Philosophy of History, p. 37. 

Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 
Alike in what it gives, and what denies. 
Porr, Essay on Man, i. 87. 


The humiliation of this failure was like a providential stroke of 
the whip.—Bremonp, The Mystery of Newman, p. 296. 


What men require is to have all difficulties cleared. And this is, 
or at least for anything we know to the contrary, it may be, the same, 
as requiring to comprehend the divine nature, and the whole plan of 
Providence from everlasting to everlasting.—BuTLer’s Analogy, 
li. ch. viii. § 4. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Difficulties and objections . ‘ : : . : : « 298 
Voltaire’s groan over the world . ‘ d ‘ , . . 301 
Tennyson troubled by the problem of suffering . : A ~ 802 
Manning’s anguish .. , . ’ . : ‘ . - 803 
The Ignorance of Man , . : . . : : ‘ - 304 
Butler's conclusion . : ; : ; e : ; ‘ - 3805 
The discipline of imperfect knowledge . ‘ ; : ‘ - 306 
Pain increases as Nature evolves . : . “ - 307 
Its providential purpose . : ‘ ° . - 308 
Some striking testimonies ; ‘ : ; : . ‘ - 810 
A pessimistic view possible  . : ‘ ; : ‘ é - ait 
Moral evil and human freedom . ; ‘ . . . +313 
Apparent delays of Providence ; , ; : ; 2 . 814 
The need of patience ‘ ‘ : : : : ; 2 « Ole 
Guizot on the movements of Providence : ; “ - 317 


Waiting for light from the Author of the Book . A . » 318 


LITERATURE 


Schmid, The Scientific Creed of a Theologian; Bruce, The Providential 
Order; Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God; M‘Cosh, The Method of the 
Divine Government; Terry, Biblical Dogmatics; Ballard, The True God ; 
Tennyson’s Afemoir; Butler, Analogy; Martineau, A Study of Religion ; 
Peile, Zhe Reproach of the Gospel; Lux Mundi,‘ The Problem of Pain’; 
Hinton, The Mystery of Pain; Guizot, General History of Civilization in 
Europe; Simpson, Review and Expositor, January, 1906. 


XIV 


ANY severe judgements have been passed on 

M Divine Providence. The suffering and wrong 

which are painfully familiar to thoughtful 

men have led some to deny that there is any wise and 

beneficent ruler of the world. Objections to the 

doctrine of Providence ‘ have been the same in all ages: 

the stumbling-blocks of unbelief and the trial of the 
faith and patience of the saints.’} 

It is well that the problems should be clearly stated, 
for explanations are possible which lead to increased 
confidence in the wise and gracious rule of God. As 

tichard Baxter put it, ‘Nothing is so firmly believed 
as that which has once been doubted.’ 

The difficulties are manifest. If any one thinks he 
finds in them clear evidence that there is no Divine 
Providence, and describes its dispensations as ‘ mere 
events, the natural connexions of which are known,’ 
this ‘only raises greater difficulties than are presented 
by belief in Providence.’? The difficuity of unravelling 
all the causes of an event must be faced, ‘ whether one 


1 Pope, Compendium of Theology, p. 192. 
2 Schmid, Scéentific Creed of a Theologian, p. 176. 


300 Man’s Partnership with 


adopts an affirmative or a negative position upon belief 
in Providence.’? The difficulty is still graver when 
the assertion is made that an ‘event was not intended 
by a determining originator’? To see in these things 
the ‘work of almighty power and of supreme in- 
telligence in a Living God’ is a far more reasonable 
solution than to deny that they reveal any cause or 
intention. 

But the difficulties cannot be ignored. They 
darken the lives of many who can trace no moral order 
in the world, no real progress towards a reign of truth 
and goodness. The Christian solution does not satisfy 
‘some of these thinkers. They ask us not to mock their 
misery by offering ‘ that farthing-candle of faith in Pro- 
vidence to guide us through the gloom.’® Dr, Terry 
says— 

We may well wonder why the struggle of life should 20 
on through such immense periods of time, and yet reach no 
end apparently worth such incalculable pains and toil. Why 
should our heavenly Father, who has all powerand wisdom, 
tolerate such apparent waste of energy ? Why permit the 
long, long times of ignorance, and vice, and wars, and 
oppressions, and crimes ? .. . Alas, the questions of theodicy 
are many, and it is not given unto any of us to answer 
them. We can at most see in part, but if we look with 
care, we shall see enough to establish us in faith and hope 
and love. 


1 Schmid, Sctentific Creed of a Theologian, p. 177. 
4 Tbids pile, 

* Bruce, The Providential Order, PALLET 

* Biblical Dogmatics, p. 575. 


Divine Providence 301 


The Bible has no fear of patient investigation of these 
problems and mysteries, as the Psalms and the Book of 
Job bear witness. Nor does St. Paul attempt to ignore 
the facts. To him they are patent. ‘For we know 
that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in 
pain together until now’ (Rom. viii. 22). ‘Cruel 
and spiteful’ are words used by those who think 
it absurd to contend that God is omnipotent, be- 
cause on the face of it, seeing the things He has 
created, He was a sad bungler. Voltaire was of 
this mind. ‘The last utterance of his system is a 
groan,’ } 


The globe is covered with chefs-d@euvre, but with vic- 
tims ; it is only a vast field of carnage and infection. Hvery 
species is pitilessly pursued, torn, eaten on the earth, in the 
air, and in the waters. Man is more unhappy than all the 
animals put together; he is continually a prey to two 
scourges which the animals are ignorant of, unrest and ennui, 
which are only disgust with himself. He loves life, and 
he knows that he will die. If he is born to taste some 
passing pleasures for which he praises Providence, he is 
born to sufferings without number and to be eaten by worms ; 
he knows it, and the animals do not know it. That fatal 
idea torments him; he consumes the instant of his detest- 
able existence in making his fellows unhappy, to slaughter 
them basely for mean wages, to deceive and to be deceived, 
to plunder and to be plundered, to serve in order to rule, 
and to repent without ceasing. Except a few sages, the 
crowd of men is only a horrible assemblage of unfortunate 
criminals, and the globe only contains corpses. I tremble 


1 John Cairns, D.D., Unbelief in the Highteenth Century, p. 141, 


302 Man’s Partnership with 


in turning an attentive gaze on that horrible picture, yet 
once more to have to complain of the Being of beings.? 


Tennyson makes King Arthur wrestle with these 
problems. Sir Bedivere heard in his tent the moan- 
ings of the king. 


I found Him in the shining of the stars, 

I mark’d Him in the flowering of His fields, 
But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die, 
O me! for why is all around us here 

As if some lesser God had made the world, 
But had not force to shape it as he would, 
Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
And enter it, and make it beautiful? 2 


Tennyson himself may represent those who are 
sorely burdened by the sorrow of the world. His 
son says— 


He was occasionally much troubled with the intellectual 
problem of the apparent profusion and waste of life, and by 
the vast amount of sin and suffering throughout the world, 
for these seemed to militate against the idea of the Omni- 
potent and All-loving Father. 

No doubt in such moments he might possibly have 
been heard to say what I myself have heard him say: ‘An 
Omnipotent Creator who could make such a painful world 
isto me sometimes as hard to believe in as to believe in 
blind matter behind everything. The lavish profusion, too, 
in the natural world appals me, from the growths of the 


' Les Adorateurs, ou Les Louanges de Dieu, Dialogues ii. 194, 
No, 42. ; 
? The Passing of Arthur. 


Divine Providence 303 


tropical forest to the capacity of man to multiply the 
torrent of babies.’ 

He would sometimes put forward the old theory that 
‘The world is part of an infinite plan, incomplete because 
it isa part. We cannot therefore read the riddle.’ 

He had been reading the eighth chapter of Romans, 
and said that he thought that St. Paul fully recognized in 
the sorrows of Nature and in the miseries of the world a 
stumbling-block to the divine idea of God, but that they 
are the preludes necessary as things are to the higher good. 
‘For myself,’ he said, ‘ the world is the shadow of God.’ 


But if Tennyson saw and felt the difficulties, he 
was not blind to the danger of misinterpreting events 


which besets our limited intelligence and imperfect 
knowledge. 


My father invariably believed that humility is the only 
true attitude of the human soul, and therefore spoke with 
the greatest reserve of what he called ‘these unfathomable 
mysteries,’ as befitting one who did not dogmatize, but who 
knew that the Finite can by no means grasp the Infinite : 
‘ Dark is the world to thee, thyself is the reason why’; and 
yet he had a profound trust that when all is seen face to 
face, all will be seen as the best.? 


The problems are always present, and sometimes 
almost overwhelm those who have hearts of pity. 
Lady Dilke says— 


Manning’s anguish at human suffering was developed in 
a degree that I have known in hardly any other man. I 
have heard him speak with a sound in his voice and a light 
in his eyes which meant depths of restrained passion. ‘ Give 


* Tennyson’s Memoir, by his Son, i. 313-7. 


304 Man’s Partnership with 


all yourself to London, it is the abomination of desolation.’ 
‘No one knows the depth of the sufferings of women, save 
the doctor or the priest.’ 


Any fruitful study of this subject must recognize 
that man’s present powers and opportunities do not 
enable him to fathom the mystery. Bishop Butler saw 
this clearly. He describes the moral government of 
God as ‘a scheme imperfectly comprehended.’ 


The wisest and most knowing cannot comprehend the 
works of God, the methods and designs of His Providence 
in the creation and government of the world. . . . Creation 
is absolutely and entirely out of our depth, and beyond the 
extent of our utmost reach. . . . Every secret which is dis- 
closed, every discovery which is made, every new effect 
which is brought to view, serves to convince us of number- 
less more which remain concealed, and which before we had 
no conception of.? 


Though the study of human life teaches us some- 
thing of ‘the designs of Providence in the government 
of the world, enough to enforce upon us religion and 
the practice of virtue; yet, since the monarchy of the 
universe is a dominion unlimited in extent, and ever- 
lasting in duration, the general system of it must 
necessarily be quite beyond our comprehension,’ 3 

In his Analogy Butler argues that our ignorance ‘is 
really a satisfactory answer to all objections against the 
Justice and goodness of God. . . . Those things which 


* Memoir of Lady Dilke, p. 106. 
* Sermon, Upon the Ignorance of Man, xy. p. 191, 
> Ibid., p. 192, 


Divine Providence 305 


are objected against the moral scheme of Providence 
may be, upon the whole, friendly and assistant to 
virtue, and productive of an overbalance of happiness.’ ! 


Thus the scheme of Providence, the ways and works of 
God, are too vast, of too large extent, for our capacities. 
There is, as I may speak, such an expanse of power, and 
wisdom, and goodness, in the formation and government 
of the world, as is too much for us to take in, or compre- 
hend. Power, and wisdom, and goodness, are manifest to 
us in all these works of God, which come within our view : 
but there are likewise infinite stores of each poured forth 
throughout the immensity of the creation; no part of 
which can be thoroughly understood, without taking in its 
reference and respect to the whole: and this is what we 
have not faculties for.? 


Such considerations guard the Christian thinker 
against presumption in his judgements on Divine 
Providence. St. Paul closes his memorable review of 
these things with that wondering confession of igno- 
rance: ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His 
judgements, and His ways past tracing out! For who 
hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been 
His counsellor?’ (Rom. xi, 33-4). 

Nor is it only that the subject is too vast for our 
comprehension. God may have reasons for concealing 
certain things from His creatures. The veil may be 
‘drawn over some scenes of infinite power, wisdom, and 


? Part I, chap. vii. * Sermon, Upon the Ignorance of Man, § 7, 
Xx 


306 Man’s Partnership with — 


goodness, the sight of which might some way or other 
strike us too strongly.’ There is a moral discipline in 
such concealment of the whole scheme. Patience thus 
has its perfect work. The very ignorance of deeper 
matters leads to the concentration of attention on 
personal conduct and character. God wishes to treat us 
as free creatures, and not to ‘ compel recognition of Him- 
self by proofs which are logically and mathematically 
unassailable.’ | 


What He desires is to win grateful love with voluntary 
homage from men who experience such effects of Redeeming 
Love on themselves that they cannot any longer doubt God 
on account of those mysteries of His sovereignty which they 
are unable to solve here below, so vast and wide is their 
experience of all that He gives them and of the possessions 
in which they feel themselves blest.? 


One of the pressing problems of Providence is the 
existence of suffering. We have already discussed this 
in its bearings on Nature (p. 144). It is still more diffi- 
cult to reconcile the existence of human pain with the 
divine goodness. Man has greater capacity for suffer- 
ing, and in his case anticipation of coming trouble adds 
sensibly to his anguish, Here he pays the penalty of 
his higher organization. 


Pain increases as Nature evolves. Nature evolves 
physically, and more highly organized animals feel more 
than the lower; it evolves to conscious reason, and man 
has deeper sorrows than the brute ; it evolves socially, and 


1 Schmid, Scientific Creed, p. 175. 


Divine Providence 307 


civilized man has more complex pains than the savage ; it 
evolves spiritually, and the saint has agonies that the sensual 
or selfish man never knows.? 


This is a law stamped on human nature. It is no 
variable accident, but part of the providential order. 
Darwin saw this when he said— 


It has always appeared to me more satisfactory to look 
_ at the immense amount of pain and suffering in this world 
as the inevitable result of the natural sequence of events, 
i.e. general laws, rather than from the direct intervention 
of God, though I am aware this is not logical with reference 
to an Omniscient Deity.? 


Pain is the spur to labour and to wise forethought. 
The pains of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and want ‘work 
the organism. ® Without such incentives human 
energy and industry would stagnate. In another realm 
pain sets a barrier across paths that lead to disaster. 
The art of healing would lose its chief ally if disease 
were unattended by pain. It gives warning of the 
approach of some hidden mischief, and . urges the 
sufferer to seek the remedy. 


Painful sensations are only watchful videttes upon the 
outposts of our organism to warn us of approaching danger. 
Without these the citadel of our life would be quickly 
surprised and taken.* 


* Simpson, Review and Expositor, January, 1907, p: 3. 
* Life and Letters, iii. 64. 

* Martineau A Study of Religion, ii. p. 76. 

* Le Conte. 


308 Man’s Partnership with 
Mr. Peile, in his Bampton Lectures, says— 


Our first animal instinct is to regard pain, physical and 
moral, as wholly evil, as the one real evil, to be avoided at 
any cost; we shrink from it in ourselves with horror, in 
others with disgust. 


But experience makes us ‘ready to welcome pain in 
its salutary office of warning us off from the dangerous 
places of life.’ 

As we grow wiser we see that ‘loss and suffering 
have a power which success and prosperity miss, a 
power to refine and strengthen the character; that the 
noblest work is done by sufferers, and through suffering ; 
that pain is a condition of all true progress,’ ? 

This is the way to the highest ends. ‘The pleasures 
of each generation evaporate in air; it is their pains 
that increase the spiritual momentum of the world, 2 

These considerations check any hasty judgement. 
Pervasive and increasing pain may be a witness to Pro- 
vidence, a sign that God will not be content unless 
His creatures are seeking to develop the highest 
possibilities of their nature. Human nature needs such 
discipline for its perfecting. Pain has certainly led 
both nations and churches as well as individuals to — 
their greatest influence and usefulness. Israel’s hard 
bondage in Egypt was a providential school which 
prepared the race for national greatness. 


? The Reproach of the Gospel, pp. 64-5. 
* Lux Mundi, ‘The Problem of;Pain, p, 124. 


Divine Providence 309 


The darker side of human experience thus bears 
witness to Divine Providence. Pain is the angel with 
the flaming sword. 


The very risks to which human life is exposed in the attain- 
ment of its ends are providentially used to increase the care 
which is taken for its conditions, and to widen the range of 
that care, till it embraces the community as a whole. They 
constitute also a commanding summons to the energy by 
which evil is overcome.’ ‘ 


The conclusion which we reach is that criticisms of 
Divine Providence based on the existence of human 
suffering are short-sighted. They fasten attention on 
things which arouse our pity, but they ignore the 
higher interests of humanity, which are served in a 
multitude of ways by what is often very hard to bear. 


From a general survey of the whole difficulty, it would 
appear, therefore, that the dilemma that God is either not 
beneficent or not omnipotent is entirely inconclusive. It is 
the existence of pain, and of all that centres in pain, that is 
held to force upon us this alternative. Yet it is clear that, 
taken on the whole, pain is advantageous, especially judged 
from the standpoint of the higher interests of the world. 
In so far as this may be presumed, the existence of pain 
cannot be used either as an argument against the beneficence 
of God or His omnipotence.” 


The moral and spiritual benefits derived from pain 
must not be overlooked. It enriches character. It 
opens springs of tenderness in rocky natures, it reveals 


1 Lidgett, The Christian Religion, p. 397. 
2 Ibid., p. £00. 


310 Man’s Partnership with 


heavenly things to minds dazzled by the vain glories of 
the world. 


It is good for me that I have been afflicted ; 

That I might learn Thy statutes (Ps. cxix. 71), 
is an experience to which multitudes have borne witness. 
Christian character gains rich blessing through sorrow. 


Hours spent with pain and Thee 
Lost hours have never seemed. 

Those who have endured the severest testing have 
been most eager to acknowledge that Divine Providence 
had dealt graciously with them, and had led them to 
results which would have been unattained save for the 
baptism of sorrow, 


The pains of martyrs, or the losses of self-sacrificing 
devotion, are never classed among the evil things of the 
world, They are its bright places rather, the culminating 
points at which humanity has displayed its true glory, and. 
reached its perfect level. An irrepressible pride and glad- 
ness are the feelings they elicit: a pride which no regret can 
drown, a gladness no indignation overpower.’ 


Pater has the same thought. He speaks of those 
noble men and women who amid entangling conditions 
‘work out for themselves a supreme dénouement. . 
Who, if he saw through all, would fret against the 
chain of circumstance which endows one at the end 
with those great experiences ?’ 2 

George Meredith’s great apothegm,\‘ There is nothing 


+ Hinton, The Mystery of Pain, p. 12. 
* Studies in the History of the Renaissance, p. 245. 


Divine Providence 311 


the body suffers that the soul may not profit by, is true 
here. Mr. Simpson, in the paper from which we have 
already quoted, draws a striking illustration from the 
‘months of distress’ which broke down Mr, Gladstone’s 
strength. ‘His biographer, not unnaturally, called a 
ereat Christian’s sufferings “cruel” ; but Mr, Gladstone 
himself died singing praise of Him who is “most sure 
in all His ways.”’ The statesman’s eye was fixed on 
the goal towards which he was being led. It was the 
providential path to the beatific vision. 

Pain is never a welcome guest; but it is fighting 
our battles, and we fail when we shrink ‘from the stern 
alliance’ Its presence in human life ‘is eminently 
useful, and therefore consistent with providential and 
beneficent design.’! We may easily take a pessimistic 
view of human suffering, and there are moments when 
to rise above that spirit is a veritable triumph. Yet in 
hours that are more serene we may see that pain has 
its limits. 

All this dark bulk of misery is divided and subdivided 
amongst countless individuals. Hach takes his little bit 
of pain and bears it in his corner. Moving amongst all 


this army of darkness, though unseen by us, is another army 
of light, of love, of courage.” 


John Stuart Mill maintained in his Sssay on 
Religion that if God were omnipotent the just law 
would be that ‘each person’s share of suffering and 


1 Lux Mundi, p. 119. 
2 Le Gallienne, Religion of a Literary Man, p. 27. 


312 Man’s Partnership with 


happiness would be exactly proportioned to good or 
evil deeds, and no human being would have a worse 
lot than another without worse deserts,’ 

We quite agree with an accomplished critic, who 
says: ‘This is a strange and difficult world of ours; 
but after all, I am thankful I live in it rather than in 
the world Mill would have made in the name of justice,’ ! 

Edward Payson held that many providential afflic- 
tions, whatever other reasons exist for them, are designed 
to keep the springs of human sympathy running. 
Affliction in a home softens character and forges new 
links between the strong and the feeble. Sir Leslie 
Stephen, in a time of great sorrow, wrote to Mr. 
Lowell— 


Grief like mine has only this one advantage, that it 
_ Iakes old friends dearer. As for Providence, I don’t call 
people foolish—as you accuse me of doing—for believing 
in it, till they make a Providence of their own; anda very 
disagreeable kind of being it often is. I am content to 
take things as they come, and fight it out as well as I can. 


That moral discipline reveals the hand of Providence, 
York Powell, in speaking of his friend Vigfuson’s death, 
writes to W. P. Ker: ‘He said one day, “Life would 
be a very poor thin thing without sorrow,” and it is 
true.’* When Mr. W. T. Arnold was dying, ‘ sympa- 
thetic murmurs now and then seemed to give glimpses 
into depths we could not reach. “God only knows 


' Simpson, Review and Expositor, J anuary, 1907. 
* Life, i. 97, February 2, 1889. 


ee So a ee ee 


— 


i ee 


Divine Providence ate 


what I have suffered.” ‘It’s all love.’ “God is the 
strong power”; and, scarcely breathed, on the last day 
before his death, “I love God”; . . . “I love God!”’’? 

On the wider scale great disasters have brought out 
much that was good in human nature. Hurricanes, 
earthquakes, epidemics have knit nations and com- 
munities together. This justifies the verdict that ‘the 
dispensations of Providence may take the form of 
natural calamities. 2? Murmuring is rebuked and cast 
out in view of such issues. 


Our rights! our grievances .. . against God. When 
we have given due thanks for our mercies: for the mere 
sky and sunshine, for the wonder of love, for the miracle of 
beauty, for the humblest joys of sensation, then it will be 
time to talk about those.? 


Moral evil is a harder problem to explain than that 
of pain. For this the God of Providence cannot be 
held accountable. The wrong done to the innocent and 
helpless, the woes endured by little children, all ery 
out for explanation. Such things almost make us doubt 
whether there is any Divine Providence. The key to 
this mystery lies in human freedom. That necessarily 
implies freedom to will evil, Where man sinks below 
his true nature he follows evil; but the indwelling 
Spirit of God is given to convict him of sin and wrong, 
to lead him to renounce it, and follow after good. 

1 William Thomas Arnold, pp. 121-2. 


2 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, ii. 265. 
3 Le Gallienne, Religion of a Literary Man, p. 42. 


314 Man’s Partnership with 


Under such guidance it is not too much to expect that 
evil may be cast out of human lives! Evil exists in 
myriad forms as we know by terrible experience, but 
in the Atonement of Christ and the grace of the Holy 
Spirit God has prepared the means of deliverance and 
victory. Divine Providence is responsible for the gift 
of freedom, but not for the abuse of it from which evil 
springs. God preferred to have a moral universe rather 
than have no free moral universe at all. 


And since the idea of moral beings includes their 
freedom, Omnipotence itself could no more make moral 
beings without freedom than a square without sides. It 
would not be a difficulty, but a contradiction in terms.? 


Much criticism of Divine Providence overlooks the 
fact that the very conception of it involves patience. 
Its purposes require space and time for their unfolding, 
We see the beginning of some great scheme, others will 
see its issue. William Morgan, the young Irishman 
who led the Wesleys to visit the sick and the prisoners 
at Oxford, died in 1732, but he had set his friends on a 
road which they followed for more than half a century, 
and which Methodism still delights to follow. 

Providence, then, must not be measured by lifetimes. 
Delays are hard to understand in the midst of our 
fight against sin and wrong. It is not easy to be 
patient when Heaven seems dumb and inactive. Should 

* See Watson’s Philosophical Basis of Religion, pp. 459-62. 


* Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 77. See also Terry, Biblical 
Dogmatics, p. 135, 


Ce 7, 


Divine Providence 305 


not Divine Omnipotence make haste to win the victory ? 
Mr. Froude says that Carlyle’s faith in the existence, 
the omnipresence, the omnipotence of God remained 
unshaken to the end of his life, ‘yet he was perplexed 
by the indifference with which the Supreme Power was 
allowing its existence to be obscured. I once said to 
him, not long before his death, that I could only 
believe in a God which did something. With a cry 
of pain, which I shall never forget, he said, “He does 
nothing.” ’+ 

Strange blindness must have fallen on the two 
historians in that hour. Both Nature and history are 
a living, growing commentary on our Lord’s word, ‘My 
Father worketh even until now, and [ work’ (John 
y. 17). If God stands in the background allowing man 
the glory and joy of service, that must not obscure the 
fact that His providence is always at work in the world. 
Walt Whitman was wiser than Carlyle when he wrote 
those lines ‘ after reading Hegel ’— 
Roaming in thought over the universe, I saw the little that is 

Good steadily hastening towards its immortality, 


And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge 
itself to become lost and dead. 


That nobler spirit is growing. 


A number of unworthy beliefs about God are being 
tacitly dropped, and they are so treated because they are 
unworthy of Him. The realm of Nature is being claimed 
‘for Him once more; the distinction between natural and 


1 Thomas Carlyle in London, ii, 260, 


316 Man’s Partnership with 


supernatural is repudiated ; we hear less frequently com- 
plaints that God ‘does nothing,’ because He does not assert 
Himself by breaking one of His own laws.’ 


An old Methodist saint, Thomas Robinson Allan, 
heard Thomas Binney in 1852, when he was in much 
perplexity. The preacher said— 


Everything is in the control of God, who in His own 
time will interpose. But His Providence often takes a wide 
sweep, and to our limited minds seems to be delayed. 
Nevertheless, God is always working, and that on the side of 
truth and right, and His people can well afford to wait.2 


Our judgements on Providence change as we wait 
and work. Waiting is a great test of faith, but it pays. 
As Dr, John Ker put it, ‘Let God in His Providence 
finish His sentences, and do not interrupt Him at every 
word.’ We have all had to reverse our verdicts on 
Providence. God was wiser and more gracious than 
we had dreamed. It is no small comfort to feel that 
this is true in small matters. It suggests that it may 
be so in great things also. ‘It is very little that we 
can ever know of the ways of Providence or the laws 
of existence ; but that little is enough, and more than 
enough,’ 3 

If this reversal of judgement takes place in a life- 
time, how greatly may the verdicts of future genera- 
tions be modified by events that lie outside our vision! 

* Edinburgh Review, January, 1908, pp. 103-4. 


* Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1887, p. 608. 
> Ruskin. 


25 a > spow: i 


Divine Providence Sy 


When the light shines, and we know as also we are 
known, we may expect to gain still more wonderful 
insight into the ways of God. 

Guizot, in a luminous chapter on civilization, dis- 
cerns progress and advance everywhere. 


If we now examine the history of the world we shall 
have the same result. We shall find that every expansion 
of human intelligence has proved of advantage to society ; 
and that all the great advances in the social condition have 
turned to the profit of humanity. One or other of these 
facts may predominate, may shine forth with greater 
splendour for a season, and impress upon the movement its 
own peculiar character. At times it may not be till after a 
long interval, after a thousand transformations, a thousand 
obstacles, that the second shows itself, and comes, as it were, 
to complete the civilization which the first had begun ; 
but when we look closely we easily recognize the link by 
which they are connected. The movements of Providence 
are not restricted to narrow bounds; it is not anxious to 
deduce to-day the consequence of the premisses it laid down 
yesterday. It may defer this for ages, till the fullness of 
time shall come. Its logic will not be less conclusive for 
reasoning slowly. Providence moves through time, as the 
gods of Homer through space—it makes a step and ages 
have rolled away. How long a time, how many circum- 
stances intervened, before the regeneration of the moral 
powers of man, by Christianity, exercised its great, its 
legitimate influence upon his social condition? Yet who 
can doubt or mistake its power ?? 


That prospect must always be before our eyes. We 
shall not find it easy to bear the harsh judgements 


1 Guizot, General History of Civilization in Europe, pp. 17-18. 


pow 


318 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


passed on God’s ways. When hard words were spoken 
about religion, R. H. Hutton tells Dr. Brown— 


I feel dumb when my heart is hot within me, and can 
only sometimes call upon Christ to vindicate His own reality 
instead of getting wretched little litterateurs like me to 
speak for Him. ‘Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens 
and come down, that the mountains might flow down at Thy 
presence,’ is the inexpressibly strong feeling with which I 
always begin my painful work on subjects that one word 
from’ God Himself would render so inexpressibly insignifi- 
cant and meaningless. But so I suppose it is always to be 
in the world. . 


We anticipate joyfully that word from God. It is 
promised, but we shall have to wait for it. Meanwhile 
faith rests amid all perplexities and mysteries on the 
assurance that Divine Providence is moved by the 
highest wisdom and goodness, and is leading all who 
accept its guidance to a goal where they shall under- 
stand how all things have indeed worked together for 
good. 


’ Letters of Dr. John Brown, p. 347. 


~ 


+ Pa ee eee 
eh, Sy a eS . ee ee 


XV 


THE PART ASSIGNED TO HUMAN 
PROVIDENCE 


For one cannot proceed one step in reasoning upon natural 
religion, any more than upon Christianity, without laying it down as 
a first principle that the dispensations of Providence are not to be 
judged of by their perversions, but by their genuine tendencies; not 
by what they do actually seem to effect, but by what they would effect 
if mankind did their part; that part which is justly put and laid 
upon them.—Butuiemr, Analogy, Part II. chap. i. 


Find out the plan of God in your generation; and then beware 
lest you cross that plan, or fail to find your own place in it.—Princg 
ALBERT’s Maxim. 


On him, their second Providence, they hung, 
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. 
Pops, Essay on Man, ii. 217-8. 


Listen to this from Bacon: ‘It is a heaven upon earth when a 
man’s mind rests upon Providence, moves in Charity, and turns upon 
the poles of Truth.’ Of the Essays he said: ‘There is more wisdom 
compressed into that small volume than into any other book of the 
same size that I know.’—Trnnyson’s Life, ti. 415. 


CONTENTS 


Human Providence responsible for many evils : : : - 821 
It must be educated for its part. : : ; , : a oe 
Mill’s objection answered by Dr. Wallace ; ‘ . . « 822 
A great field here. ° . , . ‘ . - 323 
Influence of one wise ally of Divine Brawienee . ‘ ° ~ 3824 
A Kempis on individual responsibility . . : ‘ : - 3825 
Maurice on the duty of the Churches . : ‘ . : . 825 


The world as an ally of man . . ° ° : ° Paes 4 
The Jewish Church deposed from its Bikes . é * « 3828 
Nations and'social movements.) 2) 3) 


Wise methods essential . “ 3 : : . : Paes y3!) 
Some things to strive for. ; - i . : . ° . 3830 


Efforts for the criminal classes ‘ : ; 4 ; > peak a 
Fruitful rescue work . . ‘ ‘ f . 332 | 
Medicine and surgery as a sphere of Aeanad Provider 4 . 333 
Man responsible for much misery in the animal world : . 335 
Human tyranny and war. . : ‘ ‘ . , ‘ . 336 
Singleness of purpose needed . : . : . . » 336 
What Human Providence might have done : A e - 338 
Its boundless opportunity . : . , ; , . 3839 
Society an instrument for God’s nuesoten . : ; . . 3840 


The victory sure if the right road taken i x _ 4 2 BAL 
Partnership in Providence an inspiration . A ‘ F ; . 341 


LITERATURE 


A. R. Wallace, My Life; Wrixon, The Pattern Nation; Pearson, 
National Life and Character; Anderson, Crime and Criminals; M‘Cosh, 
The Method of the Diwine Government ; Lankester, The Kingdom of Man; 
Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, ti Huntington, Human Society ¢ 
Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis; Peile, The Reproach of 
the Gospel; Nicholas, Christianity and Socialism;, The Citizen of To- 
morrow ; Keeble, Industrial Day Dreams; Loane, From their Point of View, 


XV 


HE hasty and ill-considered judgements on 
Divine Providence which we have passed in 


review suggest that the attack must be taken 
into another quarter. It is Human Providence that 
we have to arraign. There are, no doubt, evils and 
sorrows which have their root in the constitution of 
man. We see no means by which disease and death 
can be eradicated, however much they may be shorn 
of terrors, till the present Providential Order gives 
place to that new dispensation in which there is no 
more death, no tears, no pain. For that the whole 
creation longs and prays. 

Meanwhile man’s side is at fault. We are allies 
of Divine Providence, and can in no small measure 
help or hinder its purposes. Our misreading of God’s 
ways, and of our own nature, our misconception of 
duty, our selfishness and blindness, all mar the result. 
Man must be educated to fulfil his task as a partner 
with Divine Providence. Dr. A. R. Wallace once dined 
with John Stuart Mill. 

The conversation turned somehow upon the existence and 


nature of God. Mr. Grote [the historian] seemed inclined 
Y 


322 Man’s Partnership with 


to accept the ordinary view of an eternal, omniscient, and 
benevolent existence, because everything else was almost 
unthinkable. To which Mill replied, that whoever con- 
sidered the folly, misery, and badness of the bulk of man- 
kind, such a belief was unthinkable, because it would imply 
that God could have made man good and happy, have 
abolished evil, and has not done so. I ventured to suggest 
that what we call evil may be essential to the ultimate 
development of the highest good for all; but he would not 
listen to it or argue the question at all, but repeated, 
dogmatically, that an omnipotent God might have made 
man wise, good, and happy, and as He had not chosen to 
do so ib was absurd for us to believe in such a being and 
call Him almighty and good. 


Mr. Wallace was not convinced by these assertions. 
He saw that man was at fault. He refers to Robert 
Owen’s training of children at New Lanark. 


WVone were found to be incorrigible, none beyond control, 
none who did not respond to the love and sympathetic 
instruction of their teachers. It is therefore quite possible 
that all the evil in the world is directly due to man, not to 
God; and that when we once realize this to its full extent 
we shall be able, not only to eliminate almost completely 
what we now term evil, but shall then clearly perceive that 
all these propensities and passions that under bad conditions 
of society inevitably lead to it, will under good conditions 
add to the variety and the capacities of human nature, the 
enjoyment of life by all, and at the same time greatly 
increase the possibilities of development of the whole race. 
I myself feel confident that this is really the case, and that 
such considerations, when followed out to their ultimate 


* See this subject treated in Chapter V. 


ON OE a, ee Ce en ee 


OG Sage eee. Ee 


Divine Providence 323 


issues, afford a complete solution of the great problem of 
the ages—‘ the origin of evil.’? 


The possibilities of wise and patient work in this 
field of Human Providence are astonishing. Man’s 
will and way must be brought into harmony with the 
purposes of Divine Providence. He must be quick 
to make experiments, and must bend his energies to 
secure favourable conditions for carrying them out. 
The gardener seeks the situation and the soil which 
will bring flower and fruit to perfection. If he is not 
at first successful, he transplants his flower or sapling 
and helps it to put forth all its energies. Experiments 
in human nature are more critical, but the results are 
even more wonderful. The child from the gutter is 
given a new chance in our colonies, and grows into 
a strong, self-respecting worker. We sometimes have 
to take bold steps, as Wesley did when he left his 
Oxford quiet to labour in Georgia and to become 
the Evangelist of England. Such ventures can only be 
made with an eye fixed on God and a heart waiting on 
Him for guidance. 

John Stuart Mill argued that there was 


a radical absurdity in attempts to discover, in detail, what 
are the designs of Providence, in order when they are 
discovered to help Providence in bringing them about. 
Those who argue, from particular indications, that Pro- 
vidence intends this or that, either believe that the Creator 
can do all that he will or that he cannot. If the first 


' My Life, vol. ii. 237-8. 


324 Man’s Partnership with 


supposition is adopted—if Providence is omnipotent, Pro- 
vidence intends whatever happens, and the fact of its 
happening proves that Providence intended it. If s0, 
everything which a human being can do is predestined by 
Providence and is a fulfilment of its designs.’ 


This reasoning, however, ignores the possibility that 
God has arranged a world where Human Providence 
may have its share in the uplifting of the race. There 
is everything to encourage bold and well-considered 
action. . 


The greatest changes of which we have had experience 
as yet are due to our increasing knowledge of history and 
nature. ‘They have been produced by a few minds appear- 
ing in three or four favoured nations, in comparatively a 
short period of time. May we be allowed to imagine the 
minds of men everywhere working together during many 
ages for the completion of our knowledge? May not the 
increase of knowledge transfigure the world ?” 


It is not easy to exaggerate the influence which a 
single enlightened individual may exert as an ally of 
Divine Providence. Dr. Arnold’s work at Rugby 
changed the aspect of English education. Every wise 
teacher has a noble field. He must be awake to the 
possibilities of individual character and capacity. The 
child’s mind must not be forced into the master’s or 
parent’s groove. Providence may have chosen quite a 
different mould for it. Each nature must have room 


' Mill, Nature, &c., p. 55. 
2 Jowett’s Plato, i. 414. 


ee a ee Co 


Divine Providence 325 


to expand in its own way. Its capacity must be 
recognized, and it must be helped to find itself and 
develop its powers. The openings before the master 
of a household or of a business are scarcely less 
significant. 

A double danger besets Human Providence. It 
may do too much, or it may do too little. It may be 
listless, or it may become impatient and self-willed. 
It is not easy to avoid these dangers, Individual 
responsibility must be developed, and a wise interest 
taken in the affairs of others. A recent biographer of 
Thomas & Kempis says he knew that the great decisions 
of life depend upon the individual, and that a profound 
sense of individual responsibility is the basis of all 
ethical, all spiritual progress. And yet ‘he is in fact a 
Socialist, rather than an Individualist. He preaches 
from end to end of his work the most practical form 
of altruism: Si portart vis, porta et aliwm—If thou 
wilt be carried, carry also another. The whole 
duty of human altruism, the whole doctrine of human 
solidarity, is contained in this and other pregnant 
phrases.’ } 

F. D. Maurice saw that Human Providence must be 
practical, must be awake to the needs of society and 
devote all its strength to the conflict with sin and 
wrong. He ‘lived in those exalted regions where God 
and His enemies wrestled for the bodies and the souls 


of men,’ 
1 Montmorency, Thomas a Kempis, pp. 265-7. 


326 Man’s Partnership with 


He saw the Churches, with their stiff, formal traditions, 
sharply divided from the life of the ever-passing crowd. 
He found their energies pent up into services one day in 
seven, and emphasizing only the more obvious sins of the 
flesh as being the essence of all evil. He demanded that 
they should come out into the streets and into the day- 
light, in a new crusade for the transfiguration of the whole 
of modern society, in the light of the great illumination of 
the end. ‘Iam sure,’ he maintained, ‘that if the gospel 
is not regarded as a message to all mankind of the redemp- 
tion which God has effected in His Son; if the Bible is 
thought to be speaking only of a world to come, and not of 
a Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace and Truth with 
which we may be in conformity or in enmity now; if the 
Church is not felt to be the hallower of all professions and 
occupations, the bond of all classes, the instrument of re- 
forming abuses, the admonisher of the rich, the friend of 
the poor, the asserter of the glory of that humanity which 
Christ bears—we are to blame, and God will call us to 
account as unfaithful stewards of His treasure.’ ? 


The Churches have learned that lesson, and are 
busy with tasks which were once regarded as quite 
outside their province. Our great Central ‘Missions 
have nobly led the way in this extension of influence 
and service. Human Providence is thus enlarging its 
sphere with the happiest results. It is becoming 
clearer that the moral forces latent in Christianity 
may be concentrated on that progressive regeneration 
of social and public life on which the prophets of 
Israel set their hearts, and which Jesus Christ came 
to fulfil, The isolated efforts of the past are being 

* Masterman’s F. D, Maurice, pp. 142-3. 


Divine Providence 327 


followed by a mobilization of resources from which it 
is legitimate to expect notable results.? 

Human Providence, then, is assigned no mean share 
in the renewing of the world. Its success in its vast 
task will depend on the measure in which it regards 
itself as responsible to Divine Providence and as an 
integral part of the world for whose transformation it 
is to labour. George Herbert dwells with much quaint 
‘llustration on man’s relation to the earth and heaven, 
where ‘each thing is full of dutie’ to its human master. 
That is his lever for working out the purposes of God. 
He is so identified with the world that his opportunity 
of labouring for its good is unbounded. 


More servants wait on Man 
Than he'll take notice of: in evry path 
He treads down that which doth befriend him 
When sicknesse makes him pale and wan. 
Oh mightie love! Man is one world, and hath 
Another to attend him. 


Since then, my God, Thou hast 
So brave a palace built, O dwell in it, 
That it may dwell with Thee at last ! 
Till then afford us so much wit, 
That, as the world serves us, we may serve Thee, 
And both Thy servants be2 


For Human Providence to hold back from its work 
is disloyalty to its divine partner. One national story 
is full of warning here. The history of Israel shows 


1 See Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, chap. vii. 
2 The Temple, § 64, ‘Man.’ 


328 Man’s Partnership with 


what pains God took to train His helpers and how 
blind they were to His purpose. Philo calls the Jewish 
people the priests and prophets for all mankind, and 
asks why they do not seek to confer the benefit of a 
happier and better life on all! God sought to raise 
the chosen race to the height of their providential 
vocation, but they took a narrow view of their privilege 
and duty. Their honour and prosperity, their richer 
measure of truth, were occasions for pride and self- 
glorification rather: than calls to consecration. The 
most terrible indictment ever brought against a people 
who had forsaken the providential path, was wrung 
from the broken-hearted Apostle in his Epistle to the 
Thessalonians, ‘The Jews, who both killed the Lord 
Jesus and the prophets, and drave out us, and they 
please not God, and are contrary to all men’ (1 Thess. ii. 
14, 15). 

There is no mightier antidote to pride and selfish- 
ness than to watch how such instruments are laid 
aside and others chosen. The Jewish Church has long 
lost its premier place as the ally of Divine Providence. 
It gave the world the Old Testament and prepared the 
way for the coming of the Messiah. But it refused to 
work on God’s lines. It became a hinderer of Provi- 
dence, and the curtain falls on priests and scribes 
fighting against God.’ 

These thoughts apply with much force to the 
national life of to-day. The problem of rendering each 

* Neander, Church History, i. 70. 


Divine Providence 329 


nation the most efficient instrument of Divine Provi- 
dence is beset with difficulties. Canning once said, 
‘Time and chance can do nothing for those who will do 
nothing for themselves. Providence itself can scarcely 
save a people who are not prepared to make a struggle 
for their safety.’ Our civilization carries a problem in 
its bosom as to the relations of rich and poor which 
is only partially understood. This is somewhat ‘ dis- 
guised by the many noble aspirations, and bright fore- 
casts for a happy future social life for men, which 
accompany it; and by ardent schemes for higher 
methods of industrial life, which all good men would 
rejoice to see realized.’ * 

Christian thinkers sympathize profoundly with every 
wise endeavour to promote the general well-being. 
The social movements of our time may be regarded 
as allies of Divine Providence. Nations never had so 
manifest a call and opportunity in this direction as 
to-day. A wise policy in regard to the housing of the 
poor, sanitation, temperance, the education and training 
of the young, will do much to elevate the submerged 
masses. It is no easy thing to shape national schemes 
of reform on lines which time and experience will 
approve. A true worker for the people uttered this 
warning— 

He who goes about the world-school, simply trying to 


stanch the tears of those who cry, without examining why 
the Master lets them work in tears; he who wanders hither 


1 Wrixon, The Pattern Nation, pp. 9-10. 


330 Man’s Partnership with 


and thither crying out on the Providence that allows men 
to be wounded in the world-battle, without inquiring 
whether they brought it on themselves; he who, in short, 
tries to be more merciful than God—may think himself a 
charitable man, but may chance to earn the name of 
meddling fool. 


A significant comment on that sentence is made 
by a devoted worker among the poor. 


I once heard a clergyman say what the actions of many 
people declare with equal plainness: ‘I am weary of all 
this cant about “deserving cases.” Surely it is more Christ- 
like to help the undeserving!’ He coolly took for granted 
the fact that we can help them, while practical people know 
how hard it is to assist even the most deserving without 
ultimately producing more harm than good.2 


The need of caution is evident. Yet Human Provi- 
dence is bound to bestir itself. The difficulties which 
beset the path only make our duty more manifest, 
Many baffle our attempts to raise them in the scale of 
living by their drunken habits, their lack of self-respect 
and industry ; but the task cannot be regarded as hope- 
less by those who believe in divine grace and its 
power to uplift the lowest. Meanwhile we have our 
clear duty. It is thus set forth by one who felt the 
burden borne by many to be intolerable. 

Is it too much to say that, in the general interest, 


Separation of the sexes in homes might be insisted on, with 
the result that, instead of families living in a single room, 


* Lambert’s Sermons on Pauperism, p. 46. 
* Miss Loane, The Next Street but One, p. 147. 


Divine Providence 33! 


there should be three bedrooms at least to every married 
man’s domicile? Ought not the average of wages to be 
such, that every able-bodied man could bring up his family 
in a house good enough to maintain the body at its highest 
efficiency, and at the same time to make a provision against 
sickness and old age? Is it not for the interest of the 
State that every child should be well taught, that the most 
capable should be able to rise out of the ranks, and that all 
should have a little sunshine, some respite from toil during 
their early years ?? 


No difficulties must daunt us from undertaking our 
task. It is the plain business of a nation to secure the 
best training for its youth, and to act as human provi- 
dence for the poor and unfortunate who are unfitted for 
the struggle of life. The criminal classes form another 
heavy burden. John Howard awoke the conscience of 
Europe in this respect. Elizabeth Fry brought a 
breath of health and Christian purity into Newgate. 
Since their days many lessons have been learned. The 
herding of prisoners, with its horrible contamination 
of first offenders, is now impossible. 


If we go back a single generation, our prisons were 
so administered that a term of imprisonment was an 
adequate training for a criminal career; and the prisoner 
on his discharge, finding no one to give him a helping hand, 
was all too likely to turn to crime. But to-day prisons are 
no longer nurseries of crime; and the development of 
practical philanthropy makes it possible for every offender, 
on leaving prison, to return to honest labour.’ 


1 Pearson, National Life and Character, pp. 127-8. 
2 Sir R. Anderson, Crime and Criminals, pp. 10-11. 


332 Man’s Partnership with 


We have much still to learn as to the art of renew- 
ing and saving the fallen. It is one thing to punish; 
it 1s another to awaken desire after a better life and 
guide the halting steps along that toilsome road. Those 
who bend their strength to such tasks will learn from 
the problems that beset Human Providence how hard 
are the tasks of Divine Providence. Their lips will 
utter no harsh or hasty judgement on the Power that 
governs the world. Efforts to raise the fallen and 
strengthen feeble -wills need singular wisdom. The 
humblest work must be on right lines, and must support 
and supplement schemes which take a wider range. 
There is a right method of doing these lesser tasks 
of Human Providence, and it is essential to follow 
it. Those who do so will discover undreamt-of 
forces which are their strong allies in every good 
work. 


It will be found, too, that every effectual means of 
reclaiming the abandoned and the outcast must contain 
within it a method of bringing the parties anew under the 
power of those supports which Providence affords to the 
continuance in virtue. ... In order to secure the co- 
operation of Providence we must adopt the system of 
Providence, and place the parties under its influence. 
Without this, all mere secular means will be found utterly 
useless in elevating human character to a higher level. 
Human wisdom is at its highest exercise when it is ob- 
serving the superiority of divine wisdom, and following 
its method of procedure.’ 


‘ M‘Cosh, Method of the Divine Government, p. 241. 


Divine Providence 333 


One instance of fruitful rescue work may be men- 
tioned, Dr. A. R. Wallace was greatly impressed by a 
story which the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes told him at 
Davos in 1896. A female prisoner who had reached 
the depths of drunkenness and vice became so violent 
that it was dangerous to approach her. One of 
Mr. Hughes’ rescue workers asked to be allowed to go 
to her cell and receive her on her discharge. She was 
told it was unsafe, and when she persisted, several of 
the strongest female warders went to protect her. The 
lady opened her arms and kissed the prisoner, who was 
melted down by this treatment and burst into tears. 
She became one of the most useful and earnest helpers 
in the rescue home. 


This woman had not, for years, received a single word 
of real sympathy or love. A similar marvellous effect was 
produced by Mrs. Fry on the female prisoners in Newgate 
by her intense sympathy and affection for them; yet we 
still go on with our crude, harsh system of prison discipline, 
which inevitably degrades and brutalizes the great majority 
of those subject to it. And we dare call ourselves en- 
lightened, humane, civilized, and even Christians.? 


The progress made by medicine and surgery in the 
relief of suffering during the last half-century furnishes 
a memorable example of the achievements possible to 
Human Providence. No similar period in history has 
seen such increase in our knowledge of the causes of 


1 My Life, ii. 217-8. See a still more remarkable story in Dr. 
Baedeker and his Apostolic Work in Russia, p. 166. 


334 Man’s Partnership with 


disease and the means by which it may be met and 
conquered. <A notable lengthening of life has already 
been secured, and more wonderful developments are in 
store. It is becoming clear that infectious diseases 
may be almost stamped out, and mortality among 
children greatly reduced. Thousands of lives have 
already been saved by antiseptic surgery. Science is 
manifestly alive to her part in the scheme of human 
providence. ‘Malta fever,’ which had long been en- 
demic in that island, has been practically extinguished ; 
and the ‘sleeping sickness, which attacks white men 
as well as natives, and threatens to spread along the 
Nile Valley, is being studied with good hope of 
similar results.’ Sir Lauder Brunton says— 


Very few discoveries have had such important bearings 
upon the possibilities of life in the tropics as that of the 
definite proof of the part played by mosquitoes in the 
transmission of disease. Already the discovery has saved 
very many lives, and rendered residence in malarial dis- 
tricts almost free from danger when certain precautions 
are adopted.” 


Yellow fever has been almost stamped out in some 
districts of the Southern States of America by destroy- 
ing mosquitoes in the same way as is done in fighting 
malaria. If ‘ignorance and apathy’ were overcome, 
wonderful results would follow. West Africa may 
become one of the healthiest parts of the empire if our 


* Lankester, The Kingdom of Man, chap. iii. 
* Times, October 22, 1907. 


Divine Providence 335 


knowledge of tropical medicine goes on improving as 
it has done during the last few years. Discouragements 
may be turned to rich account in this war. 


Every jet of chaos which threatens to overwhelm us 
is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Fate is 
unpenetrated causes. ‘The water drowns ship and sailor, 
like a grain of dust. But learn to swim, trim your barque, 
and the wave which drowned it will be cloven by it, and 
carry it, like its own foam, a plume and a power. The 
annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds that of war; but 
right drainage destroys typhus.* 


‘Professor Ray Lankester shows how much the 
domestic animals are affected by the rule of man in 
the diseases to which they are subject. 


It seems to be a legitimate view that every disease to 
which animals (and probably plants also) are liable, except 
as a transient and very exceptionable occurrence, is due to 
man’s interference. The diseases of cattle, sheep, pigs, and 
horses, are not known except in domesticated herds and 
those wild creatures to which man’s domesticated pro- 
ductions have communicated them.’ 


Man is thus responsible for much misery in that 
world over which God has given him such ample control. 
Itis his plain duty to see that all avoidable disease and: 
hardship are removed. Where one man of first-rate 
intelligence is employed in detecting ‘ disease-producing 
parasites, their special conditions of life and the way 
to bring them to an end, there should be a thousand.’ ? 


1 Emerson, The Conduct of Life: ‘ Fate.’ 
* The Kingdom of Man, p. 33. 3 Tbid., p. 86. 


336 Man’s Partnership with 


To play the part of minor Providence wisely will tax 
man’s resources, but it will bring a vast increase of 
happiness and well-being into the kingdom over which 
Divine Providence has given him rule. 

In other fields there is much to learn. Man’s 
tyranny over man is the theme of some of the blackest 
pages of history. The horrible story of slavery and 
the history of wars of extermination and conquest 
make us shudder at the callousness of human nature. 
The world has had no scourge like that which man has 
endured from man. 


If the earthquake and the storm have slain their 
thousands, these rebellious passions have slain their tens 
of thousands. By far the largest part of human misery 
is the work of human impatience and discontent. 


Charles Kingsley bewailed the waste of life in 
the Crimean war. 


Oh, consider how precious is one man; consider how 
much good the weakest and stupidest of us all might do 
if he set himself with his whole soul to do good ; consider 
that the weakest and stupidest of us, even if he has no care 
for good, cannot earn his day’s wages without doing some 
good to the bodies of his fellow men; and then judge of 
the loss to mankind by this one single siege of one single 
town [Sebastopol ].’ 


The duties set before Human Providence call for 
sincleness of aim and purity of motive. Self-seeking, 


1 Gwatkin, The Knowledge of God, i. 180. 
* Sermons for the Times, p. 212. 


Divine Providence aay 


as every day’s experience of social and municipal 
affairs bears witness, will effectually destroy usefulness. 
Our Lord’s words have abiding and growing significance : 
‘No man can serve two masters ’ (Matt. vi. 24). Every 
partner of Divine Providence must bring this test to 
bear on his own character and motives. It is only 
when we are ready to make sacrifice for God and 
others that we can be used for the highest ends. The 
law of vicarious sacrifice holds right through the realm 
of Human Providence. The very fact that vested 
interests of every kind stand in the way of progress and 
reform is significant. The only safety for true and 
brave men is in singleness of aim. 


Do you seek first God’s kingdom, or your own profit, 
your own pleasure, your own reputation ? Do you believe 
that you are in God’s kingdom, that He is your King, and 
has called you to the station in which you are to do good 
and useful work for Him upon this earth of His? What- 
ever be your calling, whether you be servant, labourer, 
farmer, tradesman, gentleman, maid, wife, or widow, father, 
son, or husband, do yon ask yourself every day, ‘ Now 
what are the laws of God’s kingdom about this station of 
mine ? What is my duty here? How can I obey God, and 
His laws here, and do what He requires of me, and so be a 
good servant, a good labourer, a good tradesman, a good 
master, a good parish officer, a good wife, a good parent, 
pleasing to God, useful to my neighbours and to my 
countrymen?’ Or do you say to yourselves, ‘ How can 
I get the greatest quantity of money and pleasure out of 
my station, with the least trouble to myself ? ’? 


1 Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, xiii., on Providence, p. 218. 
Z 


338 Man’s Partnership with 


The providence of God grows more wonderful as we 
study it. Its plans are conceived with a wisdom and 
a beneficence that are far above human thought; they 
are carried out with a power and a patience that can 
only be described as divine. As these marvels are 
better understood, Human Providence will appreciate 
more highly the greatness of the partnership to which 
it is invited. When the glorious truth of Divine 
Providence is grasped and reproduced in a thousand 
minor forms as the Providence of a home, a church, a 
kingdom, a.new era will dawn in the life of the family, 
the Christian society, and the world. If the Human 
Providence had always been awake to its responsi- 
bilities and wise in facing them, many a page of social 
and national history would have been altogether different. 
If as Divine Providence unfolded its plans its earthly 
partners had been ready to carry them out, a thousand 
evils would have been averted and a thousand blessings 
gained for man. War would have ceased, and nations 
would have learned to seek each other’s blessing and 
prosperity. Towards that end God is leading the 
world. 


The Almighty Providence which never sleeps draws His 
children on; and when He draws, it is no aimless move- 
ment. We see but the surface, or only margins and 
glimpses of the mighty plan. ‘he world is not a self- 
impelled caprice. History is not a tangled skein.! 


* Huntington, Human Society: its Providential Structure, €e.. 
pp. 193-5. 


Divine Providence 339 


Providence makes constant and growing calls upon 
us. ‘God is a good worker, but He loves to be 
helped.’ We need also that divine discontent which is 
always bent on improvement. Much has been done, 
but far more waits and presses for accomplishment. 
‘If there is one sin in the present state of evolution it 
is contentment. No human being can afford to be 
contented; if he be so, his sin will surely track him 
down.’ ? 

Dr. A. R. Wallace is very severe. He says— 


As compared with our astounding progress in physical 
science and its practical applications, our system of govern- 
ment, of administrative justice and of national education, 
and our entire social and moral organization, remain in a 
state of barbarism. 


Here, then, is the boundless field of labour assigned 
to Human Providence. What can we count on God 
to do? How can we make ourselves most effective as 
workers together with Him? Those are great questions, 
and our Lord has answered them. He tells us in the 
Sermon on the Mount ‘why we are to work, and to 
look forward, and to believe that God will bless our 
labour. And what is this reason? It is this, that we 
have a Father in heaven; not a mere Maker, not a 
mere Master, but a Father. All turns on that one 
gospel of all gospels, your Father in heaven.’ ” 

When Human Providence shapes its whole course 


1 Jackson’s Bernard Shaw, p. 212. 
2 Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, p, 200. 


340 Man’s Partnership with 


in harmony with that double truth—the Fatherhood of 
God, the Brotherhood of Man, it will put forth its full 
strength to accomplish its growing tasks. There are 
dangers ahead which may thus be averted. Whether 
there is to be a ‘yellow peril’ in the Far East depends 
on how far we can leaven Japan and China with the 
Spirit of Christ and make them and ourselves obedient 
to the Golden Rule. The wealth of the world is 
inexhaustible ; andif all men labour together to develop 
it every nation will be enriched. 


If it were not that men do not seek first the kingdom 
of God and His righteousness, there would be no end, no 
bound to the wealth, the comfort, the happiness of all the 
children of men. Even as it is, in spite of all man’s sin, 
the world does prosper, marvellously, miraculously ;—in 
spite of all the waste, destruction, idleness, ignorance, 
injustice, and folly which goes on in the world, mankind 
Increases and replenishes the earth, and improves in 
comfort and happiness ;—in spite of all, God is stronger 
than the devil, life stronger than death, wisdom stronger 
than folly, order stronger than disorder, fruitfulness 
stronger than destruction, and they will be so, more and 
more, till the last great day, when Christ shall have put 
all enemies under His feet, and death is swallowed up in 
victory, and all mankind is one fold? under one Shepherd, 
Jesus Christ, the righteous King of all.” 


Human society has been described as ‘a living 
instrument of Divine Thought.’? All its parts are 
dependent on each other and intended to support and 


1 B.YV. ‘ flock.’ ? Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, p. 208. 
* Huntington, Human Society, p. 34. 


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Divine Providence 341 


perfect each other. Society may accomplish tasks 
which the individual cannot perform. Intemperance, 
crime, poverty, ignorance may thus be grappled 
with and overcome. The world is waking up to the 
possibilities of united action, and so are the Churches. 
There is no task set by Divine Providence which its 
human partners may not accomplish through the power 
of the Holy Spirit. 

The victory on which our hearts are set may not be 
reached in our lifetime, but it will be brought nearer 
by every act of fidelity and self-sacrifice, and it will 
surely come. There is only one road. John Ruskin 
has marked it out. 

The real history of mankind is that of the slow advance 
of resolved deed following laboriously just thought ; and 
all the greatest men live in their purpose and effort more 
than it is possible for them to live in reality. The things 


that actually happened were of small consequence—the 
thoughts that were developed are of infinite consequence. 


The thought of partnership in Providence is an 
inspiration to the patient and teachable. God allows 
us a share in His designs for the blessing of the world. 
He even sets the system of natural law at our service 
that our engineers and men of science may employ it 
in a thousand ways to promote the general good. The 
laws of gravity, the forces of steam and electricity, the 
varieties of climate, man is able to press them all into 
his service! Our best strength must be put into 


1 See O. D. Watkins, The Divine Providence, p. 126. 
Z3 


342 Man’s Partnership with Divine Providence 


the work that falls to us. We shall reap as we sow. 
Providence deals with our human contributions to the 
general scheme for the well-being of the world, as the 
earth deals with the grain from which springs the golden 
harvest. It becomes increasingly evident as we watch 
the signs of the times that Divine Providence will not 
fail in its glorious enterprise for the salvation of the 
whole human race, and each one of its humble, true- 
hearted partners shall have his rich share in the honour 
and blessing of the accomplished work. 


ee a ee ee 


a 2 


INDEX 


Abraham, 28, 159 

Acton, Lord, 118, 183, 157, 178, 
183, 198, 209, 288 

Aeschylus, 61 

Agassiz, 127 

Alfred, King, 85 

Allan, T. R., 316 

Ambrose, St., 13, 119 

America, 174-5 

Anaxagoras, 59 

Anglo-Saxon leaven, 174; mis- 
sions, 242 

Animals and Man, 335 

Aquinas, Thomas, 87 

Aristotle, 61 

Arnold, Dr., 149, 164, 180, 255, 
324 

Arnold, Matthew, 93 

Arnold, W. T., 168-70, 312 

Augustine in Kent, 192-3, 216 

Augustine on Providence, 13, 191, 
243 

Aurelius, Marcus, 67-70 


Bacon, 295, 319 

Barnardo, Dr., 120 

Barrie, Mrs., 2538 

Baxter, John, 249 

Benson, Joseph, 261 

Bible as a Book of Providence, 
25-50, 301 

Bible Society, 222 

Boethius, 1, 273 

Books, list of, 2, 16, 26, 52, 82, 
102, 128, 150, 186, 212, 244, 
260, 276, 298, 320 

Booth, General, 207 

Boston, Thomas, 243 


Brainerd, David, 220, 224 
Britain, Christianity in, 215 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 158, 245 _ 
Browning, 5, 101 

Bruce, Dr. A. B., 25, 54, 81, 181 
Brunton, Sir Lauder, 334 
Buddhism, 75 

Burder, George, 228-9 

Burke, 159 

Butler, 211, 297, 304-5, 319 


Caesars, The, 169 

Carey, William, 223, 232 

Carlyle, Thomas, 37, 112, 122, 
315 

Catechism, Methodist, 4 

Catechism, Shorter, 286 

Celsus, 104 

Christianity, 167, 213-4 

Chrysostom, 119 

Church as an ally of Providence, 
The, 21 

Church, Dean, 33, 255 

Church history, Providence in, 
185-210 

Cicero, 66 

Clarke, Dr. Newton, 111, 280 

Cobden, 268 

Coke, Dr., 221 

Coleridge, 8. T., 290 

Comte, 147 

Concursus, 275 

Confucius, 76-7 

Creation and Providence, 27-8 

Creighton, Bishop, 157, 174 

Criminal classes, 331-3 

Cromer, Earl, 72, 148 

Cromwell, 23, 117, 269 


344 Index 


Cumming, Dr. Elder, 30 
Cuthbert, 252 


Dante, 147 

Darwin, 104-5, 109, 130-3, 307 
D’ Auguesseau, 149 

Death, 290 

Diggle, Bishop, 292 

Dorner, 51, 259, 275 
Doughty’s Arabia, 51 

Dryden, 101 


East India Company and mis- 
sions, 230-2 

Egyptian view, 55 

HKliot, George, 287 

Embury, Philip, 250 

Emerson, 262, 271, 275 

England and her vocation, 172-4 

English Christianity, Making of, 
192-6 

Epictetus, 67 

Epicureans, 63-4 

Erasmus, 201-2, 218 

Euripides, 62 

Evangelical Revival, 203, 221, 
223 

Experience as a Book of Provi- 
dence, 243-58 


Fanaticism, 282 

Fiske, Prof., 127, 147 

Flavel, 1, 101, 256, 259, 261, 295 
Fletcher, John, 252 

Flower, Sir W., 133 

Food stores of the earth, 137 
Francis of Assisi, 197 

Free will, 109-113 


Gibson, Bishop, on Job, 39 

Gladstone, Mr., 117, 162, 287, 311 

God of Providence, 81-100 

Grant, Charles, 230 

Greece, Vocation of, 162-5, 190 

Green, T. H., 211 

Greg, 89 

Grey, Sir G., 124 

Guizot, 317 

Gwatkin, Prof., 11, 81, 110, 133, 
149 


Haeckel, 104 

Hannington, Bishop, 33, 35 

Harvard, John, 253 

Heck, Barbara, 250 

Hegel, 8, 152-4, 297 

Henry, Matthew, 243 

Heraclitus, 58 

Herbert, George, 327 

Herodotus, 62 

Herschel, Sir J., 145-6 

Hesiod, 56 

Hiil, David, 239 

Hinton, James, 92 

Hohenlohe, Prince, 90, 113 

Hole, Dean, 24 

Homer, 51, 56-7 

Homes and Providence, 21 

Hooker, 185 

Horne, Melville, 225-8 

Hughes, H. P., 333 

Human Providence, 10, 15-24, 
114, 319-41 

Humboldt, 34 

Hume, 136 

Hutton, R. H., 318 

Huxley, 28 

Hymns on Providence, 50 


Iiingworth, Dr., 73, 105 
Immanence of God, 86 

India, 235 

Indian religions, 73-5, 240 

In Memoriam, 45 

Ireland, 215-7 

Isaiah, The fortieth of, 45, 91, 94 
Israel, History of, 31, 159-62 


Jacob, 29, 247 

Japan, 232-5 

Jefferies, Richard, 138 
Jerome, 192 

Jews, The, 160-2 

Job, Book of, 37-45 

Johnson, Captain Edward, 253 
Joseph, 29, 248 

Justin Martyr, 214 


Kempis, 325 

Kingsley, Charles, 35, 127, 154, 
243, 336-7, 340 

Kipling, Rudyard, 81 


sales ~<a ee See ee ee ee ee 


Index 


Lankester, Dr. Ray, 106, 107-8, 
129, 335 

Laws, General, 277 

Leibnitz, 9, 149 

Leighton, Archbishop, 4 

Leo the Great, 165 

Lessing, 152 

Life, Providence in human, 245 

Lister, Lord, 120 

Lives, Providence in Bible, 28-31, 
247-8 

Lodge, Sir O., Catechism, 21 

Longfellow, 127 

Lower races, 175-7, 236 

Lucretius, 141 

Lull, Raymund, 217 

Luther, 50, 119, 123, 179, 199-203 


Macaulay, Lord, 95 

Macdonald, F.. W., 263 

Macdonald, George, 127 

Macdonald, James, 243 

Macgregor, ‘Rob Roy,’ 269 

Man an instrument of Provi- 
dence, 22, 327 

Man of Providence, 101-26, 267 

Manning, Cardinal, 303 

Maurice, 325 

M‘Cosh, Dr., 266, 272, 279 

Medicine and surg gery, 333-5 

Methodism a providential mosaic, 
204-5 

Methodist itinerancy, 226 

Methodist Magazine, 261-3 

Mexico, 78-9 

Mill, J. S., 15, 141-5, 311, 321, 
323 

Milton on Providence, 5, 243 

Missionary Societies, English, 
222 

Missions a school of heroism, 
237 

Missions, Providence in, 211-42 

Mivart, Dr., 144 

Mohammed, 51, 71-3 

Mohammedanism, 71, 196-7 

Moravyians, 219 

Morgan, William, 314 

Mysteries, Providential, 4-6, 11 

Mystics, Practical, 118 


345 


Nations, Providence in the life of, 
22, 53, 149-84, 327-9 

Nations, Small, 172 

Nature a book of Frovidence, 
127-48 

Nature’s methods, 142-6 

Nelson, 115 

New Testament teaching, 46-49 

Newman, J. H., 24, 203, 245-9, 
254, 264, 297 

Nile, The, 147 


Occasionalism, 266 

Ochler, Prof., 28, 31, 38 

Old Testament teaching, 27-46, 
151 

Omnipotence of God, 88-9, 309- 
11 


Origen, 104 
Orr, Dr., 289 


Paton, John G., 269 

Patrick, St., 215 

Paul, St., 53-4, 1B EA BARN BA 
151, 179, 187-8, 305 

Paulinus, 195 

Payson, E., 312 

Peru, 78-9 

Pessimism, 250 

Philip IL of Spain, 114, 268 

Pitt, W. (Earl Chatham), 149 

Plato, 60-1, 127 

Pope, Alexander, 271, 297, 319 

Pope, Dr. W. B., 8 

Powell, York, 159, 312 

Prayer, 293 

Providence and its critics, 297- 
319 

Providence, Belief in, 3, 12 

Providence, Designs of, 12, 182-4 

Providence, Divine, 1-14 

Providence, Special, 279 

Providence, The word, 7 

Providential men, 119, 120, 190-1, 
207 

Providential methods, 275-296 

Psalms, Providence in the, 32-7, 
103, 252 

Puritan missions, 219 


346 
Quinei, Edgar, 101 


Races, Relation between various, 
177-80 

Raleigh, Sir W., 154-6 

Ramsay, Prof., 187 

Ranke, 158 

Reformation and missions, The, 
218 

Religions, Comparative, 58 

Renaissance, The, 171 

Rheims New Testament, 8 

Robinson, Dean, 106 

Rome, 70; instrument of Provi- 
dence, 165-7, 168-70, 191-2 

Rosebery, Lord, 117 

Ruskin, 15, 341 


Sacrifice, Progress by, 97, 121 

Sanday, Dr., 289, 294 

Saxon beliefs, 78 

Schopenhauer, 250 

Schubert, Prof. von, 241 

Science and Providence, 135 

Scott, Sir Walter, 15, 101 

Selborne, Earl, 287 

Seneca, 65 

Sermon on the Mount, 19, 46-8, 
96, 129, 279 

Shaftesbury, Harl, 115, 252 

Shute, Richard, 291 

Socrates, 59 

Sophocles, 61 

Southey, 178 

Stephen, Sir J., 10, 285 

Stephen, Sir Leslie, 313 

Stephenson, Dr., 120 

Steward, George, 25, 165, 179, 
183, 185, 211, 214 

Stoics, The, 64-70 


Index 


Strabo, 147 

Stubbs, Bishop, 185 

Suffering, Problem of, 141-8, 306- 
13 


Tarsus, 187-8 

Taylor, Isaac, 32, 258, 282-6 
Tennyson, 94, 140, 302-3, 319 
Terry, Dr., 300 

Teutonic races, 167 
Theodoret, 126, 134 

Trent, Council of, 203 


Victoria, Queen, 85, 116 
Voltaire, 301 


Wallace, A. R., 144, 321-3, 333, 
339 

Washington, 174 

Water, 138 

Wesley, Charles, 23, 25, 50, 205 

Wesley and Providence, 4, 79, 99, 
119, 197, 205-6, 251-2, 268, 
271, 314 

Wesley, Susanna, 204, 220 

Whitefield, George, 205 

Wilberforce, 115, 231 

William the Silent, 85, 268 

Wisdom of Solomon, 7 

Wordsworth, 77 

Wyclif, 198 


Xavier, 218 
Xenophanes, 58, 92 


York, 14, 195-6, 239 
Ziegenbale, 220 


Zinzendorf, 219-220 
Zoroaster, 56 


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